De Frag
by sevenpercent
Summary: Sherlock's hard-drive needs to be cleaned up; viruses detected, malware files deleted, memory freed up, order restored. Follows on chronologically from Musgrave Blaze, but there will be enough back story to stand alone if you haven't read that yet.
1. Chapter 1

**De Frag**

* * *

**Author's note:** The inspiration for this story is found at the start of the Great Game, when Sherlock points to his head and says, "Listen. This is my hard drive, and it only makes sense to put things in there that are useful ... really useful. Ordinary people fill their heads with all kinds of rubbish, and that makes it hard to get at the stuff that matters. Do you see?" I am NOT computer literate, and this is computer as metaphor, so anyone wanting to geekpick, please don't put it in a review- please PM and I will correct if I think it makes sense and doesn't defeat the purpose of the story- which is to explain and entertain.

* * *

**Chapter One **

Previously, in _**Musgrave Blaze**_:

"I'm just underperforming because the anaesthesia hasn't entirely left my system yet. It always lingers and makes the brain work slow down. Irritating." Sherlock sounded disgusted with himself.

"Well, forgive me if I disagree, that display next door was nothing short of scintillating. If that's what you do when you are 'slowed down', then it's worrying what you expect of yourself when you are firing on all cylinders."

That earned him a glare. "My brain is _not_ analogous to the internal combustion engine of a motor car, John. Something so _old fashioned and underpowered _ is just not an adequate metaphor."

John tried to placate his friend's ego, which somehow had been bruised by the idea of needing to rest. He raised his hands in mock surrender. "Sorry- would rocket engine be better?"

"Nooo. Not in the slightest. Rocket fuel is just a lot of combustion and no finess." He tapped the side of his head. "Up here is a quad core processor, capable of dealing with multitasking and computation as fast as neurons can fire, John. The anaesthesia is like...like a power brown out. Less energy gets to the brain cells, and processing just slows down. Most annoying."

"Sherlock, this is your doctor speaking. Take the computer offline. Upstairs, pull the plug, don't reboot, give the circuits a rest. You push yourself too hard."

But Sherlock ignored him. He had to. There was not one, but four neat little mysteries to solve, each one slotting into another. He'd figured it out, in theory, but needed time to tie up a few loose ends, then prove it, to show the others who were involved. The idea of "pulling the plug" was tantamount to shutting down his brain, and he had no intention of doing that.

Two panic attacks, a melt down and a twice broken wrist later, the case was solved. But, on the way home…

oOo

"Be quiet." Sherlock was trying to shut John up. The case had taken five days, but at last they were on their way home. Stuck in the back of a chauffeur-driven Bentley, he desperately needed to take action to sort out his Mind Palace, but John seemed intent on _conversation_, of all things. Ever since Sherlock had woken up at the Royal Gloucestershire Hospital for the second time in 36 hours, he'd known that he was running on borrowed time. General anaesthesia was like a corrupt system disk, it just slowed processes down to the point where he was lucky to stay functional. It was supposed to wear off within a couple of hours for normal people, but as he had learned over time, his neural pathways were anything but 'normal'. Dealing with two doses in the space of such a short time was just…impossible.

** (ERROR 112: 0x70 ERROR_DISK_FULL)**

The hard disk was not working properly. He knew it, and it was only a matter of time before a full system crash. Something was going on that was beginning to eat up all the processing power, all the free memory space that he needed to function. When it did finally reach critical mass, he needed to be back in London. Preferably at Baker Street, in total silence, so he could do the necessary de-fragmentation routines. Or maybe a full system scan and tune-up. Possibly all three.

Something was decidedly _wrong_ with his brain. He needed a time out, when no one was around. When he could take his Mind Palace offline and figure out what was going wrong with it. It was too embarrassing when he couldn't string two sentences together in a coherent thought, when he lost the ability to speak or to make sense to a disbelieving world.

Of course, it had happened before. But not for years. He hoped he had not forgotten the way to deal with it. He tried to remember if he had ever written it down. Yes, somewhere in his bedroom, if he'd be able to find the repair manual.

Sherlock forced his body to remain inert, slouched against the leather seat, as if sleeping. He needed to hide the problem from John sitting next to him in the car. The doctor would not understand. This wasn't the sort of thing that doctors or therapists or anyone else for that matter could help him with. He was on his own, as ever.

Back in Baker Street, Sherlock vaguely heard his own footsteps on the wooden hall floor, felt the shiny Victorian brass doorknob in his right hand. How had he got there?

** (ERROR CODE 54: 0x36 ERROR_NETWORK_BUSY) **

He'd lost time and memory of motion, of leaving the car, climbing the seventeen steps. Even short term memory was failing.

He shrugged off the Belstaff and left it lying in a puddle on the floor. The scarf joined it, then he fought to keep his balance. Even the most basic of system setup software was now failing- the mental processes that kept him upright, regulated his senses. He kicked off his shoes, staggered to the bed and crumpled onto it, ignoring the pain that shot through his left wrist.

A few minutes later there was a knock on the door. With the last vestiges of voice left, he called out "Go away." He put as much force behind it as he could muster, knowing it was the last thing that he would be able to say for some time. He could hear John's voice saying something about tea, but he was no longer able to reply.

**(WINDOWS KEY + R)**

The system line came up- (**cmd?) **and sat there blinking at him.

His last conscious thought was (**shutdown –s).**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two:**

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**Author's note:** For those of you unfamiliar with my other stories, this chapter involves an OC who has appeared in quite a few of mine, Doctor Esther Cohen, a psychiatrist who has been dealing with Sherlock on and off for many years. She is introduced in _**Side-Lined**_, and also appears in _**Cross Fire** _and _**Periodic Tales**_, where more of her work with him as a child is covered. Knowing her, she might creep into new additions being plotted for _**Ex Flies**_, too. She's a bit like that.

* * *

"Thank you for agreeing to see me, Doctor Cohen. I am sorry for the short notice."

The petite grey haired woman eyed Mycroft Holmes warily as he gestured to the leather chair opposite him. Short notice was something of an understatement. She had been minding her own business at Heathrow Airport, returning from a medical conference in Milan. As she came through the green customs 'nothing to declare' channel and through the double doors into the arrivals lounge, she saw the friends and families of passengers lined up along the railing, intermixed with the taxi and car drivers bearing placards with the name of an arriving passenger. As she had no one greeting her and planned to go home by Tube, she habitually ignored this gauntlet. That is, until her eye was caught by one of the placards- "Dr E Cohen"- At first she thought it was an interesting coincidence, but not that unusual; after all, Cohen was hardly a rare name, and there were plenty of E Cohens in the London telephone directory. On second glance, however, she noticed that the sign was held by a young man in a tailored suit. He looked…different from the other drivers. Fitter, more alert, not bored. More important, he'd seen her, and clearly recognised her, even though she'd never seen him before in her life.

As she pulled her carry-on case behind, he came up beside her. "Doctor Cohen. Mister Holmes would appreciate a word with you. I have a car outside waiting to take you to the Diogenes Club. After the conversation, you will be driven home. So, you can put your Oyster Card away." He was charming, but professional- and had delivered the message in a way that left her little choice in the matter. Yet again, she was reminded of Mycroft's ability to choose people to work for him who were very good at their jobs. For a moment, she considered giving the young man a difficult time, just to see how far she could push the envelope of his orders. But, almost as soon as the mischievous idea occurred to her, she stifled it. If Mycroft wanted a command performance, then it was probably serious, and probably something to do with Sherlock. So, she gave the young man a nod, and handed over the luggage handle into his outstretched hand.

Now forty minutes later, she was sitting across from Mycroft, watching him pour her a cup of tea. She was also looking for some sign of what the meeting was about. It had been six months since she'd last seen him. Impeccably dressed as always, there were, however, a few indications that all was not well in his world. There was an open file on the side table beside his chair. Given the kind of secrets he habitually dealt with, that file was relevant to the discussion they were about to have. And even from six feet away, she could see it was a medical file. But, oddly, it was an old one- there must have been a dozen changes in NHS record-keeping forms since that one had been used. It made her curious. She was also curious that Mycroft seemed to be slightly hesitant, as if he was still thinking through how to handle this meeting. That worried her- both because in her experience Mycroft was _always_ prepared, and because it was almost certain that Sherlock wasn't aware that they were meeting.

As she took a sip of Darjeeling tea, and Mycroft sat back to take a sip from his own cup, she decided to pre-empt him.

"So, why are _we_ having this conversation about an old medical file and why haven't you told Sherlock that you are talking to me?"

He looked a little sternly at her. "Been practicing his deductive techniques, have you, Doctor Cohen?"

She allowed herself a little laugh. "If I haven't learned something from you two over the years, then I'd consider myself a lost cause. What is it this time?"

Mycroft put his tea cup down. "I need to know if you talked to Sherlock either before or after our father died in 1994."

That caught her by surprise. "Oh- _ancient_ history? Well, as a matter of fact, both. Can I know why you are asking?"

"Something happened four days ago that brought to light certain facts about that period. I would prefer not to mention them until you explain what you discussed with my brother on those occasions, and how you viewed his state of mind at that time."

She thought about his request. It niggled. "If you had asked back then, I might have told you. After all, he was a minor, and you were his legal guardian. But last time I looked, six months ago, he was an adult. Unless something has altered his mental status and returned him to enforced psychiatric care, then to do what you are asking would breach client confidentiality. If he wants me to talk to you about this period, then I will. What is this about, Mycroft? Why _now_, why the mystery?"

Mycroft considered her counter-attack. Like a fencing match, she was parrying his request, until she had more information. "I admire your ethics, Doctor Cohen, but I fear the time has passed for such considerations." He took another sip of tea. She waited. After more than twenty years of knowing Mycroft, she had come to realise that he used silence as a tool to manipulate just as much as he did words. To fill the silence, most people would often offer something, if only to keep conversation going. She didn't feel like compromising on Sherlock's right to privacy unless it was absolutely essential. So, she kept silent.

In the end, it was Mycroft who broke first. "Oh, very well. You may recall when you saw Sherlock in 1994, his wrist was broken. He broke the same wrist four days ago, and then the day after being released from hospital following surgery, he broke it yet again. In both cases, the fractures were accompanied by what can be described as …a psychological malfunction. Doctor Watson was with him on both occasions and said he was unreachable. And yet, once he regained consciousness after surgery, Sherlock acted as if nothing had happened. Watson suggests that my brother is 'deleting' the memory of the episodes."

Mycroft returned his cup to the side table. "When x rays were taken this time around, they revealed that the damage sustained twenty years ago was far more extensive than I had been told about. And, oddly, there were no medical records referring to that injury. An investigation revealed more information, and we eventually found the records...and why they have gone unnoticed for two decades." He gestured to the table and the open file.

"May I read them?" She was now very curious.

"No. Not yet. Not before you tell me what the gist of your conversations with him were. I need to know your recollection, before it is…altered by what you might read."

_Curiouser and curiouser._ Her commitment to confidentiality began to collide with her concern for what was right for the patient "I am assuming that if I talked to Sherlock, he'd deny that there was any problem- either now or back then."

"He has already done that to Doctor Watson. It is possible that he has repressed the memory so much that he is actually unaware of it. Yet, it was triggered again- on more than one occasion, if Watson is to be believed, and then immediately suppressed again. More pertinent is that fact that since returning to Baker Street two days ago, Sherlock has been totally withdrawn, uncommunicative and unwilling to engage at all with anyone or anything. While that might be thought of as rather ordinary after a case, I am told by Doctor Watson that he thinks it is different this time. I have not seen him yet to draw my own conclusions. I am due to see him this evening. In the meantime, I am… concerned about the possibility of another major depressive episode. So, a little co-operation on your part would be helpful, Doctor Cohen, if he is to avoid hospitalisation. I would not ask this of you if I thought there was an alternative."

Sherlock's persistent refusal to accept therapy put her in a quandary. Unless she knew what was going on, she would be unable to help him- after more than two decades of trying, she knew this was fact. And, looking across at Mycroft now, she knew that she was going to have to trust him.

She put her own cup down, and thought back to the time. "It was a long time ago, Mycroft. But both sessions – and yes, there were two- stick out in my mind because before them, I had not seen Sherlock for, well, probably fifteen or sixteen months. As I am sure you recall, when he first went up to Harrow, I saw him twice in the first term, to be sure he was settling in alright. Then I spoke to him on the phone occasionally in the second term, and I did poke my nose in a bit at the end of that first year. Sherlock was always going to be seen at the school as unusual, but, so long as his eccentricities didn't make him too much of a target of bullying, then I figured he would cope. As you are aware, I knew one of the Harrow House masters*, so I asked him how Sherlock was getting on. His report reassured me. He said it had been a challenging year for Sherlock, but he got through it and found a way of coping with all those boys. The violin and his riding gave him the escape valves he needed, and the academic work was challenging him enough. I spoke to Sherlock once that summer on the phone. He was very busy, a full schedule of shows and competitions with the horse. He didn't have much to say, but then he doesn't actually like talking on the phone, as you know. I left it with him that if he needed to talk about something, he knew where to call and if he preferred something face-to-face, I'd be happy to see him. And I heard nothing at all for the next year and a half."

"Then in September 1994, I got a call from my friend at Harrow. He said I should contact the Bradby House Matron, because they were _all_ concerned about Sherlock. When I did, that's when I learned about the death of the horse. The matron said he had come back at the start of the new school year the week before, and had barely said two words since arriving. His arm was in a cast, and he came with medications for pain and a schedule of hand therapist visits, once a week. I think it was Mrs Walters who brought him to Harrow- and she told the matron about the fact that his horse had died, and that she hoped the school would bring him back to life a bit." Talking about the events was helping her remember the time better. "Matron said he wouldn't talk much to anyone about anything, but did attend his classes that first week and buried himself in school work. He was excused from any exercise, and of course the violin was off the cards, too. She said she thought he was depressed and needed help, but wouldn't ask for it. I arranged with her to go see him."

She scrutinised Mycroft now. She should ask now the question that she had thought at the time, but couldn't because he was out of the country. "How much did you know about what had happened to Sherlock and the horse? You were away overseas, that much I got from Mrs Walters, when I called her. She said she was also away visiting her sister in Scotland when the accident happened, and didn't know much about the circumstances. She said your father had told you about what had happened."

Mycroft gave her a cautious if somewhat strained smile. "Yes, he told me there had been an incident, Sherlock had broken his wrist and that the horse had died. That was _all_ he told me- no details. He said Sherlock was back at Harrow."

"And you didn't think to contact Sherlock yourself?"

She knew him better than to expect any remorse or sense of guilt to be displayed. The elder Holmes was a master of managing his emotions, and this time was no exception. In a cool, detached tone he said, "It wasn't possible. In September, I was only able to telephone the UK on that one occasion. A month before, I had managed to speak to father in Jakarta in August, on the 16th. But it wasn't until late October that I was in a position to be able to telephone the UK again. On that occasion, I was told by his House Master hat Sherlock was at the doctor's getting his wrist seen to. It wasn't possible for me to phone again. The next time I saw him, it was at the funeral." Having batted away her implied criticism, he countered, "And what happened when _you_ saw him?"

As she cast her mind back to the actual meeting, a wry smile appeared on her face. "I'd forgotten how fast boys grow at that age. I swear he'd grown at least six inches since I'd last seen him. And the weedy looking little boy I saw during his first term at Harrow?- well, there was a young man standing there. Same hair and eyes, but all angles, big hands and feet, just not yet in proportion. Once I got over the first shock, I thought he looked….unwell. Too thin. He wouldn't make eye contact. Was clearly NOT happy to see me either. Matron did rather spring it on him, I fear, didn't tell him in advance. But, in her defence, if he had known, I am sure he would have found a way to avoid the meeting."

Mycroft's gaze was now focused tightly on her. "What did he say about what happened?"

"He didn't want to talk at all- not at first. He was suspicious of me. The first thing he finally did say was to ask if I'd been sent to talk to him by you or his father. While that felt a little paranoid, I knew enough about his anxieties on that score, so I told him the truth- that the school staff were worried about him. Eventually, with a lot of coaxing, I managed to get a couple of sentences out of him about what had happened. He said there was a fire, he'd hurt his wrist trying to get the horse out, but it was injured- something about a shard of wood stabbed into it, and when it did manage to break out, it died from blood loss. He said he'd been bruised and cut when the horse was thrashing about. He was there when it died. It was strange- he said it in a monotone, without any emotion. I remember thinking at the time that he was not allowing himself to grieve, and that it might be the cause of the depression. He _was_ depressed, Mycroft, that much was evident. But with good reason, he adored that horse."

He looked at her coolly. Unlike his brother, Mycroft's eyes were darker and seemed to carry more than a hint of steel in them. Not for the first time in her acquaintance with him, Esther saw the echoes of his father in him. She knew he would be uncomfortable with that assessment, but she also knew that he was his father's son, in a way that Sherlock never had been.

The subject of her scrutiny had been using the silence to do his own examination of her. "And what treatment did you attempt?"

She snorted. "Treatment? Chance would be a fine thing. No way would he talk about it. After reciting his little set piece about what happened, he clammed up entirely. I could not get a single word more out of him. I asked questions, I cajoled, I threatened, I tried bribery- nothing worked to open those shutters he'd pulled down. I suggested medication; he just shook his head. It was…as if he _wanted_ to be miserable."

She remembered her frustration. And her concern. "After a half hour of being stone-walled, I gave up. I talked to the matron, and got a damn sight more out of her than I had from him. Turns out he wasn't sleeping properly at all, and the floor monitor had caught him with his light on at 3am. The night before I showed up, he'd been found in his pyjamas and dressing gown sitting in the music room reading a book. When he was asked why, he said he couldn't sleep. He knew he'd be caught if he did it in his room again, so he'd come out to find a place where he wouldn't disturb anyone. The matron said he was miserable about having to be helped every morning to get washed and dressed. His plaster cast went right over his hand and fingers and he couldn't do anything on his own. You know how he hated being touched. She said it was even worse than normal."

Mycroft was listening carefully. "You said he looked thin. Did the school have any reason to think he wasn't eating properly?"

She gave him a rather pointed stare. "Since when has Sherlock _ever_ eaten properly?" She carried on. "Was it worse than normal? Well, the house nurse did the routine exam for the start of new term. All the boys go through a basic with her first- height, weight, the usual. He'd grown taller over the summer, but actually lost weight, so she referred him to the School doctor."

"And what did he say?"

She paused. It was a long time ago, and she was having difficulties remembering every detail. "Why don't you just ask him?" she snapped.

"I would if I could. Harrow school uses one of three doctors attending their medical centre from the Stanmore Medical Centre. I have checked the records and found the one who was on duty the week we are speaking about. Unfortunately, he died two years ago."

_Oh._ "You _are_ investigating this very thoroughly, aren't you?"

"When you read the file you will know why. I want to know why the school failed in its duty of care."

That comment stopped Esther's thoughts in their tracks. _He's looking for someone to blame._ This was no longer a matter of curiosity or fraternal concern. She'd just seen an uncharacteristic flash of Mycroftian frustration. _He wasn't there, and he wants to blame those who were for not seeing something important._ She also knew that depending on her own answers, she was certainly one of those he suspected of failing his brother. Hence this… interrogation.

She played for time. "Sorry, Mycroft. I am not blessed with an eidetic memory like the Holmes brothers. Give me a minute."

* * *

***Author's Note**: For more backstory about Esther Cohen, Sherlock and Harrow, see **_Periodic Tales_ **Chapter 25 Polonium


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

* * *

Lost in the de-frag routine, Sherlock stumbled on an odd memory. _Out of place; how did it lose the directory tag? _ He looked at it from the outside, reluctant to open it. Why was it in declarative memory when it belonged to the directory that was part of the hidden file structure in long term memory? It needed to be restored to the correct location.

He re-assigned the correct tag. Nothing happened. It didn't move.

**ERROR CODE 22 0x16 ERROR_BAD_COMMAND**

That made no sense. He knew the command was a good one. He should know- he'd worked on the tagging for that whole directory years ago. The protocols were very tight, the password encrypted and the path undetectable. It was a hidden file, one so deep in Long Term Memory that he never even accessed it when doing a full system scan. What the _hell_ was it doing in the broad daylight of current run time?

Cautiously, he approached it. From the outside, he could detect no malware. Something must have been corrupted. Something in the file wrapper must have created a string of code that made it accessible again. He sighed. Nothing for it but to go in and clean it up from the inside. He opened the file, and remembered…

…the first day of term. The Bradby House Matron had taken one look at his sling and then Mrs Walters took her aside and probably told her everything she knew. Fortunately, that was far from _everything_. He had been shepherded upstairs by Wallace. The chauffeur deposited his trunk, while the gamekeeper looked around Sherlock's new room. He sat on the edge of the bed and tuned the man's comments out. _A single room. _Sherlock had hated the fact that he had to share a room as a Shell, and for half of his second year, too. As a fifth former, he would no longer have to share. _Good. Even so, the sooner I am out of here the better._ He was looking forward to just one thing this week- the one-to-one session that every returning boy got, the one where he would tell the House Master that he intended to sit his A levels the week after his sixteenth birthday. He would not be returning in September next year. Like a prisoner facing a parole hearing, he both anticipated and dreaded that meeting. _What if he says 'no'?_

The idea of being trapped for another year, or even two, was too much to bear. He'd run if he had to. But, he couldn't tell anyone about that. _I'll end up locked away again._ Father would just love the excuse. He had to get through this term. Let his wrist and hand heal, take the exams and plot his escape.

Mrs Walters reappeared. "Now Sherlock, are you really sure? It's not too late. If you want to sit out a term and let yourself heal, it will be alright. I'm just not sure you're ready to come back so soon."

He realised he needed to say something. If he didn't talk, they'd make decisions for him. He couldn't bear that thought, so willed his mouth into action. "I'm fine, Mrs Walters. The school work is just what I need to get my mind onto…other things. Don't worry."

Now it was Frank Wallace's turn. The ginger-haired man gave him a sceptical stare. "I don't believe you, laddie. You're far from _fine_. And we do worry. But, if this is part of you getting back to what you should be, then I'll go along with it. On one condition- if it gets to be all too much, you're to call and let me take you home."

He just closed his eyes. The man had said 'home', as if home was somewhere he _wanted_ to be. On his map of home there was now a black hole, a hole with burned crisp edges right where the stable used to be. It had already been demolished, thanks to his father's instructions to the estate manager. The three remaining horses- his father's, his mother's ancient mare, and the hunter that Mycroft rode when he was chatting up the local gentry- they'd been moved to one of the estate farms.

"Sherlock?" The gamekeeper's Scottish accent reminded him that he'd been asked a question that needed to be answered. He was so tired of having to satisfy other people. Keep them content that he wasn't cracking up or in need of more medication, more therapy, more scrutiny. All he wanted to do was to scream, "L_eave me ALONE!" _ But what came out was the more practiced reassurance that he knew they needed to hear. "I'm OK. You can stop fussing. Now go on. I've got things to do."

As soon as they left, he had a few hours of peace. Around him he heard the sounds of boys returning, the thump of trunks, the raucous shrieks of laughter, friends greeting each other, summer stories being exchanged, the exuberance of youth spilling down the corridors. It all sounded so horribly false to him. In desperation, he put in the earphones of his Walkman and opened his trunk. He could unpack later. Right now he knew he needed to stop thinking. He found the CD he was looking for: the Fantasia and Fugue, for organ in G minor ("The Great"), BWV 542, sometimes referred to as the Prelude, incorrectly in his view. He couldn't bear to listen to violin music anymore. He'd left his instrument at home; it made him too distressed to think he couldn't play this term. That made him think about why he couldn't play and that led him in directions he just must not go. He turned the volume up. He forced himself to picture the score in his mind, and lost himself in the mathematical precision of Bach's masterpiece.

Ten minutes into the recording, someone touched his shoulder. Without thinking, he flinched away from the hand and threw himself out of reach. _No! Don't hit me again!_

His violent movement sideways pulled one earphone out and then he hit the wall with his left elbow, sending a shockwave of pain into his broken wrist and fingers that made him cry out. He opened his eyes in utter panic to see the equally shocked eyes of Mrs Richards, the House Matron. "Sherlock, oh my God, I didn't mean to startle you! It's just you weren't hearing me because you had your earphones on. Are you alright?"

He gasped and caught his breath. _Not now. Can't panic now; she'll send me away. _ He got his breathing under control. "I'm alright. Sorry, you scared me."

…Having sorted the corrupted file code from the inside, Sherlock could still feel the pain in his wrist- a phantom memory? No, he vaguely remembered that the pain was new. It just reminded him of the old. He re-tagged the memory, and sent it back to the basement section of the hard disk's Long Term Memory. Deleting the pathfinder code for that memory, he continued his system scan for wayward fragments.

oOo

Esther remembered her conversation with the school doctor. It had been short. She looked at Mycroft who was waiting not quite patiently across from her. The utter silence of the Diogenes Club felt oppressive. She resumed. "I spoke to the School Doctor on the phone. After the routine check, Sherlock was told by the Bradby Matron to go to the medical centre, but he didn't go, went to class instead. They didn't catch on until the next day, when she walked him over and turned him over to the School nurse. I'm sorry, I can't remember the name of the doctor- but you clearly have found his name. When I spoke to him over the phone, he said that he'd done a physical examination. Sherlock was borderline underweight for his height, but he was more concerned about his state of mind. He'd wanted to book Sherlock an appointment with the consultant who came in weekly to provide psychiatric support. But Sherlock told him that I was responsible for his care in that area. I told him that I'd been working with him for four years, and that I'd already been to see him. He sounded relieved, because he said that Sherlock had made it very clear he did not want to see another doctor. He had his schedule of weekly sessions with the London Hand and Wrist Unit, and that was all he wanted at this stage."

Mycroft's expression hardened. "So, he washed his hands of Sherlock."

"Don't be too hard on him, Mycroft. He knew that Sherlock's injury was being seen to by one of the best consultants in the UK, and that his psychological health was being looked after by someone who had been working with Sherlock for four years. If I had been in his position, I would have come to the same conclusion. In any case, Mycroft, the man is dead. No point in pursuing that line of enquiry. I left clear instructions with the school nurse, provided written notes for the three Stanmore doctors who attended the school, and spoke at length with the House Matron. They were to watch him carefully and contact me if there was either further deterioration or no improvement. If there was not a marked improvement within seven days, they were to call me and I would have put him on an SSRI."

She lifted her chin to show she wasn't intimidated by the implication that she'd let Sherlock down. "That call from the school was never made, so I can only assume that he did get his act together. Losing the horse and coping with the physical injury were no doubt challenging, but I had no reason to believe that he didn't manage to do so. Your brother is remarkably tough minded."

"Did you ask to see the hospital discharge notes?" It was a pointed question, and she felt the threat in its sharpness.

"No, why should I? I was not his primary care physician. I assumed it would have been sent to the family's GP and then onto the school with the details of the medication and physical therapy programme for his wrist. I was more worried about possible consequences- such as depression. And I left very detailed notes for his support network on what to do if the depression did not abate or if it worsened. His mental health was my priority."

Esther was now getting increasingly annoyed. _What isn't he telling me? What the HELL is in that file? _But before she could give voice to her thoughts, Mycroft moved on.

"Very well, Doctor Cohen, you have explained what happened on the first occasion. You spoke to him again in November, after our father's funeral. Tell me what happened on that occasion."

"It was the House Matron again. Oh God, I've forgotten her name, too."

"Mrs Richards."

_Damn him and his memory. _She snapped, "I am looking forward to seeing how you cope with old age and short term memory issues, Mycroft. I hope I live long enough to see you forgetful." That comment was not rewarded by even the slightest reaction in his gaze. She sighed.

"Right. Mrs_ Richards_ telephoned me to say that Sherlock had returned to school after three days away to attend his father's funeral. This was not the first time I had heard of your father's death- of course, I read it in the newspaper. On the day I read the announcement, I phoned the school to try to contact Sherlock, to see how he was taking the news, only to be told he was at the Estate. I rang Mrs Walters, who told me that you were home and taking care of things. So, I let it go. If he wanted to talk, Sherlock had my number. If you wanted me to see him, you had my number. Given how little time the two of you had spent together in the previous two years, I thought it best to leave you two to it."

Did that sound a little defensive? Yes, Esther decided it probably did. _But, damn it, if he's not going to tell me what I was supposed to have missed, then he deserves it._

"And yet, you did meet him when he returned to school. Why?"

"The Matron was worried by Sherlock's _lack_ of grief. She didn't know about their real relationship. She just assumed that he would be upset by the death of his remaining parent. I agreed to see him, in part to protect him from being poked at too much by the school. And, I will admit, I wanted to see how he was getting on, whether the depression I saw seven weeks before might be returning."

"Was it?" Again, the bluntness of Mycroft's tone irritated her.

"Not at all, but it had been replaced by something else. A sort of …restlessness. Agitation. That I could understand. You have to remember that in Sherlock's eyes even though he had never got on with his father, it would be very disconcerting to have his Father gone. You know very well how he had reacted in the past to death. People on the Spectrum get used to having figures around them, even people they don't like. Sherlock had come to _rely_ on his father's disliking him, his neglect. It was a constant in his life that would be missed. You have to understand that in the limited 'social geography' of someone who is autistic any change can be upsetting. Oddly enough, Richard's disaffection for Sherlock was tangible, and a kind of anchor in its own right. Amidst Sherlock's feelings of loss though, he was also almost elated. He said he felt liberated. Free from his father's judgement, as if a great cloud had lifted. I took that as a great step forward, it was a mature realisation."

"Looking back on the session, I was impressed by a number of things. First of all, he was talking, I mean _really_ talking about things he didn't normally have any interest in discussing. There was more engagement on an intellectual and emotional basis than I'd ever had with him before then. He was more _self-aware._ He was _not_ depressed. It was strange. As if his father's death made him grow up overnight, and he was taking more responsibility for who and what he was- both the neuro-typical and atypical aspects of his character. Becoming more comfortable with himself. I was _hugely _impressed, I will admit. Whatever else, in the previous seven weeks, he'd sorted the depression out and made substantial progress."

Mycroft looked surprised and then slightly sceptical. "I saw very little of that in the three days we were together."

Esther's response was almost instantaneous. "That _surprises _you**? **I am not at _all_ surprised. Why on earth would he open up to you? He had not seen you in more than a year. It might not have felt like it to you, but in the life of an adolescent, a year is an enormous amount of time. You have to realise, too, that your father's death affected you differently than it affected your brother. You will have been dealing with your own grief, as well as the all the hassle of becoming head of family- relatives, solicitors, finances, and your father's businesses- not to mention the actual funeral and memorial service. I'm surprised you even managed to speak to Sherlock at all."

She got a tiny nod of acknowledgement from the elder Holmes. She continued, "One thing your brother did say to me when I met with him, something that you may not have understood at the time. Your father's death made him much more dependent on you. He didn't like that, not one little bit. I got that message loud and clear. When your father died, you ceased to be a protector of him against his father, and became instead the sole authority figure. Remember, Mycroft, Sherlock at fifteen would be going through the rebellion/attachment ambivalence that every teenager goes through- and the issue of your guardianship of him was raised. He wanted to know exactly when he would come of legal age and be responsible for taking his own decisions. He knew, he'd done enough research to know that there might be issues, and he wanted to know what you could do to him. I told him he needed to talk to the family solicitor about those matters."

That gave Mycroft pause for thought. He drew his hands together in his lap, then looked down at them as if wondering how he had lost control of his movements for a moment. He returned them to the arms of the chair, clearly annoyed at their betrayal of his defensiveness.

She smiled. The movement restored something of her equilibrium. She didn't feel quite as threatened as she had earlier in their conversation. "So, Mycroft, are you going to _finally_ show me what's in that file, and what _both_ of us failed to pick up back then?"

* * *

**Author's note**: If you want Sherlock's POV and then Mycroft's POV on these events, go find _**Ex Files**_, Chapters _**Excruciate**_ and _**Exhume**_.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four: **

* * *

Mycroft visible flinched, but it wasn't in response to her words. He dragged his vibrating mobile out of his inside jacket pocket, a frown forming like a thundercloud on his brow. Esther watched him read the caller ID and lift the phone to his ear.

"This had better be important."

He was now in charge of his facial muscles again, and she could read nothing from it about the call or its significance.

"Wait." He thumbed a key on the phone and stood up, reaching over to the open file. As he handed it to Esther, he said, "I have to take this call, which should give you sufficient time to digest this in private. I will be back shortly." Without a backward glance, he left the room, speaking quietly on the phone again, "tell it to me again. This time, put it in the correct order." It was the somewhat impatient tone of a man used to getting things exactly as he wanted them.

Esther opened the file and was instantly confused. Who was "Peter Wallace" and why was she reading his admission record? Worthing Hospital, 1.38am 18 August 1994, Emergency Department. Male patient, aged 15. Date of birth 06.01.79. _Oh. That's Sherlock's birthday._ Had he been admitted under an alias? She kept reading.

Three pages in, she felt an overwhelming need for something stronger than the tea she'd just had. _How could I have missed this? How could the school not have said something to me, even if he couldn't – surely someone must have noticed? _The healing bruises, the wounds would have still been visible when he started term a month later. No wonder he'd been uncommunicative, withdrawn and depressed. _Damn, damn, damn! _She was livid with herself. She'd taken Sherlock's word for it. He'd been injured when trying to free his beloved horse, which died. _We all thought that was traumatic enough._ She could not have imagined what she was reading. If it wasn't there in black and white, she'd find it hard to believe it of the teenager she'd talked to in November.

According to the third page, there was clear evidence of sexual assault- anal tearing and bleeding caused by "a foreign object." So, not rape in the traditional sense, just brutality. Something designed to hurt, to humiliate but not necessarily for sexual gratification? Not for the first time in her psychiatric treatment of Sherlock, she wondered about his father.

She flipped over to the next page to the description of the wounds on the extremities- the raw flesh ripped from his right hand at the wrist, the deep cuts made by something that pinned both ankles. Then the detailed description- bruises on the ribs, back and buttocks. All on the contusion harm scale between two and three, "likely to have been caused by a severe beating." The abrasions at the wrist and ankles were "consistent with ligature marks and forced restraint". The left hand, wrist and forearm had been…smashed to an extraordinary degree. The admission note by the ED doctor noted that police and social services would be notified in the morning. But there was no record attached of that happening. Instead, the next set of pages covered the detailed surgical notes regarding the repair of the damage inflicted to his left wrist and hand: broken bones, cartilage torn, ligaments ruptured, "inconsistent with a fall, most likely caused by blunt force trauma." Surgical details, first a delayed then an adverse reaction to general anaesthesia, were followed by a note describing his reaction when he woke, the hysteria, panic attack and sedation. The psych consult note followed: "patient unresponsive, unable or unwilling to communicate. Advise psych hold for further evaluation."

And then the most damning note of all, on the last page- "Patient discharged at parental request, against medical advice." But it wasn't Richard Holmes' signature at the bottom of the form, it was someone she didn't recognise- Frank Wallace.

When Mycroft returned twenty minutes later, she did nothing to hide the dismay and shock that she was sure she was showing.

"I had no idea, Mycroft. Do you know who did this? Is it possible that your father did this?"

"No-to both questions. Father was in Jakarta at the time; that's been verified again by me recently. And, no, I don't know who was responsible for hurting my brother."

"Who is Frank Wallace?"

"The estate gamekeeper. He has been questioned already. He found Sherlock and took him to hospital. According to him, it was father's idea to use the alias. He phoned him in Jakarta before the ambulance arrived."

"WHY, was he responsible for the injuries?" She let her outrage show, but before she could follow it up, Mycroft cut her off.

"It wasn't Frank Wallace. I've made absolutely certain of that. And unfortunately, he doesn't know who did this to my brother. He says that Sherlock knows but won't say. Mrs Walters never knew. She wasn't there and father forbade him from telling her or anyone else."

Esther sighed. "How could the school have missed this? Why didn't they tell me? Surely _someone_ would have seen the bruising, the abrasions? The School doctor didn't say a word about this." She knew she must be voicing the same questions that Mycroft would have asked. She also knew that if he'd been able to find the answers, he would not have questioned her in the way he had. She tried to calm herself down. Being emotional about something that happened two decades ago was not going to solve the situation now. She needed to help and that meant she needed to think.

"Why were the police and social services put off? Surely they had to have investigated this, even if there is no record attached here."

He gave her one of his dead eyed looks. _Oh course, he's already tried to find the answer to that and not found anything yet._ She sighed, started to ask something else, but stopped herself this time. Finally, she closed the file. "What can I do now to help, Mycroft? Just tell me what you want me to do."

Mycroft's answer was almost instantaneous. "Come with me to Baker Street now. The only person who is able to answer your questions and mine is currently lying comatose on a sofa. We have to figure out how to get the truth from him- before it does any more damage."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five: **

* * *

**Author's note**: If you are susceptible to triggers about bullying, physical and verbal abuse, avoid this chapter.

* * *

**CHKDSK [drive:][[path]filename] [/F] [/V] [/R] [/L[:size]**]

He was working through a sub-routine to check for more directory tag corruption. It was slow work, but at least when he found the corruption, he could fix it and send it back to the dungeons where it belonged. John kept annoying him, a disembodied voice telling him that he had to do things, get up, wash, get dressed, eat, drink some water or tea. Basic commands he could cope with by running a simple housekeeping programme. But he wasn't able to devote any processing time to conversation or thought about what might be going on around him. So he ignored every other attempt made by his flatmate to get him to talk.

He had urgent business inside his Mind Palace. He wasn't even 20% through the full system scan yet, because he kept finding files in the wrong place. _Damn_, here's yet another one- this one seemed much bigger- a zipped file that was taking a large chunk of real time space. _Ridiculous _He didn't need access to that file anymore. Why hadn't the deleted pathfinder code worked to keep it hidden? It didn't make any sense. Computer code doesn't re-write itself, magically repairing a line to connect it to present memory. Not for the first time, he suspected a malware programme had taken hold, maliciously re-inventing links that he had long since deleted. Files that were just waiting to be overwritten were now consuming real time memory and slowing up important activity.

It was a big file, which he wearily started to unzip…

…. Pirate greeting him with that soft nicker of his; it was a "hello, pleased to see you" in horse. Sherlock opened the stall door and came in, greeting his horse the way he always did- burying his face into the side of the horse's neck, smelling that amazing scent, feeling the heat of the skin through the texture of coarser, wavy mane hair. He was a sensory magnet for Sherlock. Sound, vision, scent and touch. As his lips brushed the beauty of that gorgeously arched neck of the stallion, he could even taste the salt of the horse's skin.

The horse blew through his nostrils and flicked his ears back to catch the boy's sigh of appreciation. Then Sherlock moved his hands gently over his beloved horse's head, eventually cupping the big muzzle into his hands, rewarded with a gentle lipping and another soft nicker. Then Sherlock got down to business, the brush in his hand moving in broad strokes, over the chest and shoulders, the flanks, feeling those amazing muscles relaxing. If he was patient, Pirate might give a sort of rumble of satisfaction. But, more often than not, the nicker would be a bit impatient, a "let's get going!" of eagerness. He'd never had the slightest problem getting a bridle or saddle onto Pirate; he was as eager as Sherlock was to get into the ring and to work.

Eventing was so much more interesting than dressage. The challenge of speed, control and jumping- both in the ring and across country. Pirate was eager for it, loved it as much as Sherlock did. But the second year of Harrow took so much of his time, and the horse needed to learn faster than Sherlock could manage on the six hours a week they'd let him off lessons. And he needed someone old enough to drive him and the horse to the growing number of competitions, too. So Dirk Guilliams convinced Mycroft that he needed an assistant, one with experience of training Friesians to jump. They were big heavy horses, and had to be trained by someone who knew how to get them to do it. So, he'd gone to northwest Holland and come back with Geert Maes, a twenty year old Friesian blond, an aspiring eventer. He'd specialised in his native Friesians because he was too big and heavy for the thinner boned warmblood sport horses that dominate the eventing world. His weight alone would handicap him, so he'd not found a sponsor willing to put him on their event team.

For the first seven months, it worked. Pirate got better at jumping, so that when Sherlock could ride, he found the horse ready to take up the challenge. Stabled at the Littlebourne Equestrian Centre, four miles from Harrow, Pirate was taken care of by Geert, who exercised him and schooled him over the jumps. Dirk Guilliams could manage to be there for training sessions twice a week, and still keep his commitments to others on the British Eventing team.

It was when the competitions started that things began to go sour. Sherlock could enter events during the Easter break, at Exeats, and the summer months. Geert could take the horse to other events scheduled when Sherlock couldn't get time off school. With two different riders, the horse was able to compete in different classes- the under 18s with Sherlock and the Young Rider circuit, for 19 to 21 year olds, with Geert. The trouble was, Sherlock was a better rider, and won his events, when Maes didn't even place in the top four. The Dutchman argued that he was competing at a much higher level where competition was harder, but Guilliams saw that Sherlock was just better able to get the best out of the horse. When they trialled for the trainer on a head-to-head basis over the same course, Sherlock's times were better, his show ring rounds were clear and his dressage out-scored Geert's every time. The blond didn't like losing, and he didn't like losing to Sherlock in particular. Out of earshot of Dirk Guilliams, he started to make his dislike known to the younger rider.

Sherlock would show up ready to ride, and have to face a barrage of muttering. "What's it like, having a rich daddy who can fund your every whim? You have no idea what it's like to really work for something. I have to clean him up, do all the heavy work while you just waltz in here thinking you own the place." Maes' resentment grew, his jealousy festered.

By June, the 14 year old Sherlock and Pirate had won enough to be picked for the BEU18 Junior Southeast Regional Team, competing at Weston Park against the other seven regional teams. Winning the dressage outright, Sherlock on Pirate then produced clear rounds on the cross country and in the show ring- enough to bring the regional team the victory they'd not had for eighteen years. People started talking about the new rider and his black horse.

That summer, Maes failed to qualify on Pirate for the region's Young Rider team, mostly due to consistently poor scores in dressage. He complained to the trainer, Dirk Guilliams, "This horse is just too clumsy in the dressage arena. He will always be outclassed by the warmbloods. You need to switch him now to show jumping. In the ring, he's really good at the fences. Eventing is just not his strength. I mean I love the breed- I'm Friesian myself, but he's never going to be Olympic quality in the cross country; he's a heavy horse- too slow."

Sherlock, on the other hand, thought Pirate was perfect. "He's so responsive- and he loves to compete. I just have to ask, and it's always there. He's not the fastest, but he's smarter than the rest of the horses, so we can win. I can do this; I can go all the way with him."

The trainer saw the growing difference between the two riders. The younger one worked with the horse. The older tried to tell the stallion what to do. Pirate was awkward in the stall when Maes worked with him, braiding the long mane or currying his coat. The big man pulled and pushed. Sherlock's touch was gentler, more intuitive and courteous. The horse began to play favourites, and that made the conflict between the two riders grow deeper, more ingrained. The trainer thought a little competition would be good for both of the riders, push them to become better. He didn't see that away from his eyes, they stopped even the pretence of politeness. Sherlock ignored Geert, the Dutchman responded by yet more snide and cutting remarks. By the time Sherlock reached the second summer of competition, it was nothing short of open warfare. Only Dirk Guilliams failed to see it. When he arrived for training sessions, both Holmes and Maes were on best behaviour.

Away from training sessions, Sherlock didn't care. Maes was just an annoyance, and nothing interfered with his pure joy of riding Pirate. Until Sherlock won the Under 18 national dressage competition at Stoneleigh in June. That was a game changer for Geert. He didn't even wait to get back to Harrow. Dirk had left after the winner's photographs. Maes was to drive the horsebox and Sherlock back from Warwickshire to North London. His last word to the blond Dutchman was a gentle ribbing. "Well, I think this shows that at least one Friesian is outstanding in the dressage ring, eh, Maes?"

The other Friesian, the man this time, bit his tongue until the trainer left. He then stormed into the back of the horsebox, where Sherlock had just loaded Pirate. The irate man just pushed his way alongside Pirate's rump and shoved the boy so hard against the side of the horsebox that Pirate half reared from the noise of the crash.

"What are you doing, rich boy? You _klootzak_- just trying to show me up, were you? Well I don't like it one bit." He grabbed Sherlock's arm and threw him into the side of Pirate who shied away to the left side of the box, pulling at the bridle leads that kept him facing the right direction in the box. Maes was shouting now in his strange Dutch dialect, and Sherlock couldn't understand what he was saying. He didn't really need a translation- the man's hatred was clear. The slender teenager ducked under the horse's head, keeping the stallion between him and Maes.

"Stop it, you're scaring Pirate. It's not his fault."

"Oh, so you care about the horse, do you?" Maes lashed out, punching Pirate hard in the neck. The horse squealed, shying away from the man's blow. The heavy horse's shoulder caught Sherlock, smashing him up against the metal side of the horsebox, and the boy cried out in pain. "Stop it, just stop this. What's wrong with you?"

That made Maes laugh. "Me? There's nothing wrong with me, _Klootzak_. You're the defective one."

Pirate was thrashing about, his eyes rolling and nostrils flaring as the two argued. His hooves were striking the floor in an agitated tattoo. Sherlock managed to extricate himself from the side and squeezed back into the space at the narrowest part of the horsebox, in front of Pirate's head. To reach him, Maes would have to push past the Pirate's shoulder, and risk getting hit with a flailing front hoof.

"That's it, coward- hide. For all the good it will do you." With that, Maes went out the back door and Sherlock heard it slam and lock. Then the engine started. He reached for Pirate's head and tried to soothe the horse, calming him. He tried to control his crying. His shoulder ached.

"Shsssh, Pirate. It's alright. I won't let him hurt you again, I promise"….

…Sherlock re-zipped the file and backed out just as fast as he could. _No, I will just leave this one. There is something very nasty in there!_

He was trying to delete the pathfinder code when everything just stopped.

**ERROR CODE 10 0xA ERROR_BAD_ENVIRONMENT**

Now he was flummoxed. Runtime environment had everything he needed to execute his de-frag programme, but no tools to change it. If the environment had gone wrong, then he was going to have to go into the build language and re-build the directory structures again. That would take _ages._ He groaned. What the _hell _was going on?


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six:**

* * *

John was pacing. He expected Mycroft at any moment, and was trying to figure out what to say to him. "Sorry. I didn't realise there was a problem?" Not realistic in the present circumstances.

Yet, he wasn't _entirely_ to blame. He knew from the very beginning that Sherlock could go into silent mode. (_"Sometimes I don't talk for days on end. Would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other.")_

And he'd had more than his fair share of the silent treatment over the two plus years they'd shared a flat, when Sherlock was stretched out on the sofa, hands steepled beneath his chin. He'd never really been worried about it when those periods stretched into days, broken only by the occasional monosyllabic word or grunt. Silence was preferable to shouts of "_BORED!" _or bullets being fired into the wall.

But this was different. Sherlock had not spoken for three days, but it was _why_ he was silent that was the problem. When he got up, he did not dress, but stayed in pyjamas and his robe. That, too, wasn't that odd. But, despite encouragement from John, and offers of help from both him and Mrs Hudson, he had not shaved or washed. He did have an excuse in that his arm was in a sling, but it was his left arm, and he could have managed, if he could be bothered. He couldn't be bothered- and that was new. He went to the loo, drank tea that was handed to him, without comment. He let John look at his broken wrist, change the bandages, examine the sutures. He could wiggle his fingers on command, so functionality did not seem to be impaired. The doctor was pleased with the physical improvement; Sherlock seemed to be healing well, and he made no complaints about pain. An appointment had been made with the London Hand and Wrist Unit, in another five days. He'd go to have the sutures removed and new x rays taken; a new proper cast would be fitted. Then he would start on the physical therapy. He'd seemed to accommodate the sling; there were no more tantrums of frustration about how awkward it was to have the use of only one hand.

But he didn't speak. And, worse, there was a growing passivity in his friend. If John put a plate of food down beside him, Sherlock would start eating but then lose interest, as if he couldn't muster the energy. This morning's breakfast was typical- he'd eaten three spoonfuls of the porridge, then stopped, the spoon was still in his hand, in the bowl, but he was staring off out the window.

"Sherlock, it's not going to taste very nice if you let it go cold." John turned over the page of the newspaper he was reading on the other side of the table.

His friend slowly turned his head away from the window to look at John with incomprehension.

John gestured at the bowl. "The porridge."

When Sherlock looked down, his brow furrowed as if…as if, what? John couldn't figure out if he'd forgotten that it was there, or whether he had no idea what was actually in the bowl and what he should be doing with it. Before he could say anything, the spoon clattered onto the table. Sherlock stood up unsteadily and wandered off to the sofa.

Sherlock was barely functioning. It wasn't the usual post-case crash. It wasn't even the depression that had dogged the man when he was in the rehab clinic recovering from injuries. That was angry, agitated depression, full of anxiety. John couldn't explain it, but he was worried. This was different. Sherlock seemed unwilling to make eye contact, but it wasn't like he was consciously avoiding John.

This afternoon things had taken a decided turn for the worse. He'd gone out briefly to get some groceries in, telling Mrs Hudson to keep an eye on Sherlock. When he'd got back, she met him at the door.

"John, I really think there is something wrong with Sherlock."

"You mean, more than normal?"

She gave him a knowing look. "Of course, that's what I mean. We both know he can lie on that sofa so long it's a wonder he doesn't get bed sores, but it's different. I tried to fix him tea and coax him to talk but he's just…out of it. Are you sure he isn't, you know, indulging a bit?"

John caught her meaning. "You think he's on drugs?"

"Oh, I know I am being silly, but he does have a history; you know that as well as I do. And before you came, sometimes when he came to visit me- a bit wild, well, it was hard to tell sometimes, but I think it was because he was high."

"Well, Mrs Hudson, 'high' is not how I'd describe him right now. No, I don't think – in fact I know- he's not abusing drugs. This is something…different."

Once upstairs, he found Sherlock still on the sofa. There was no sign that he had moved at all since John had found him there when he came down in the morning.

"Sherlock."

No response.

He sighed, went into the kitchen, put the groceries away and fixed himself a cup of tea. He made one for Sherlock and deposited it on the coffee table beside the sofa. He sat down in his chair and turned the television on. The noise seemed to attract Sherlock's attention; he turned his head slightly to look vaguely in the direction of the TV. The doctor watched the grey green eyes move across him and pass over the sight, as if John wasn't there. Or worse, as if he was a piece of the furniture. It was unnerving.

He walked over to the recumbent heap on the sofa, and said quietly, "Sherlock, if you don't start talking to me in the next ten minutes, I'm going to have to call your brother."

If there was anything in John's arsenal that was most likely to provoke a reaction- of anger, sarcasm, or even avoidance- that was it: the nuclear option. Only this time, Sherlock didn't even blink. His eyes were open, but not focused on anything, not even the cracks in the ceiling. John waved his hand in front of the blue green eyes and watched perfectly normal pupil dilation in response to the shadow. _This isn't an absence seizure._ But nothing else of Sherlock registered John's presence in the room, let alone what he had threatened.

On the kitchen table his phone rang. A quick check of caller ID raised a wry smile. "Hello, Mycroft. Am I going to have to do another sweep for hidden cameras or microphones?"

"I don't need a camera, John. The fact that he has been back at Baker Street for nearly 70 hours but not once used his laptop or turned his phone on is sign enough for me. I gather he is up but not exactly functional. Is that a fair assessment?" The elder Holmes could have been reading out loud from a particularly boring government paper on tax reform, for all the emotion in it.

"Up? No not even remotely accurate. Mentally, I'd say the opposite, very down in fact. Physically? Well, vertical maybe for brief moments. He's comatose on the sofa impersonating a possum at the moment."

"I am coming to Baker Street. I will be there in about a half an hour."

"Well, be prepared for the silent treatment."

"I am prepared, John. I am also bringing reinforcements. I have been talking to Doctor Cohen. She will be accompanying me."

_Oh- the heavy guns. _"Great, can I borrow a flak jacket, please? Somehow I don't think this is going to be an easy conversation- that is, if either of you can even get him to talk."

John could hear Mycroft's determination in the tone of his next words. "If we don't stop this now, and get him actively engaged in recovery, then we might just lose him for a lot longer, if not for good, John. It is that serious."

The doctor sighed. "I know. Bring on the troops, Mycroft. Just…be careful."

* * *

**Author's Note**: because you may be as impatient as I am, and I don't want people to think I am dragging this out unnecessarily...I will post another chapter later today.


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note: **With apologies- for some reason, this did not load last night. So, despite promising you two chapters yesterday, I think I only delivered the one. So I will compensate with another later today

* * *

**Chapter Seven: **

* * *

There were noises in the room- at least three different sound patterns that his brain vaguely recollected as voices. He tried to tune them out.

His sensory memory program was malfunctioning. He couldn't find the audio function to turn it off. _Not NOW; can't you understand, I'm busy? _ The voices continued. His ears heard, his brain registered the words, but it was taking too long to understand them.

Slowly, despite his best efforts, the sounds took meaning. "Sherlock, you _must_ focus." Voice recognition programs came on stream. _Oh_, _bother_. It was his brother. He tried to open his eyes, but his lids felt like they had weights on them. No, actually, he was wrong. They were open, it's just the data coming in wasn't connecting to anything. _Great, audio on, visual off. COME ON, isn't anything working?! _

Something blurred and then took a shape of contrasting colours. A face with dark blue eyes, receding chestnut brown hair, an image that came with a veritable directory full of negative memory files. He searched for the speech function.

(**ERROR 57 0x37 ERROR_DEV_NOT_EXIST) **

_Oh, damn_. This needed to work. He tried again. "Mycroft." Even to his ears, his voice sounded odd.

"Well, at least he isn't catatonic." A female voice. Not the one usually associated with this environment, the Baker Street flat. But recognisable. He was too tired to try to unzip the data store that would have told him who she was.

"Nor so far gone that he can't recognise you." That _was_ a voice he associated with the flat. The most familiar voice of all. "John." _Did I say that out loud?_ His ears heard it, but the voice function was most peculiar; he wasn't consciously using it.

"Yep, it's me, Sherlock. Welcome back to the land of the living. What's going on?"

"You're interrupting something important. Go away."

"No. That's what you said the last time you said anything, and that was three days ago. Keep talking to me. It's important."

"No, it's not. Something else is more important." Sherlock sighed. Maybe he should try the delete vocal function again. He didn't really need to talk.

He felt something pressing into the skin under his collarbone, and then it pinched. It was _annoying_. "Stop it."

"No. Not until you open your eyes again and look at me."

Had he closed his eyes? He wasn't aware of it. He tried to access visual data again. Swirling pixels, colours, shapes, then John's worried face emerged out of them. "What's so important?"

"You are. Stop trying to ignore me."

His addled brain tried to make sense out of that statement. There were hands that were pulling him upright, moving his legs from the sofa. He felt the floor under his bare feet. _Cold._ John's hands. He didn't flinch. He recognised the touch. Warm; John always ran a higher body temperature than Sherlock. It was one of the odd things that he had realised when occasionally they had come into body contact. John's scent was all around him, too, as he was held and then pushed upright. That was… reassuring. He was propped up against the back of the sofa, glad that someone else was taking responsibility for putting his body in a sitting position. He didn't think he'd be up to that level of muscle memory and control. He felt those warm fingers on his right wrist, chasing a pulse. At that moment, he became aware of some encumbrance of his left side. Something had trapped his arm; cloth, odd. He tried to move it and was rewarded with a hefty shaft of pain that made his eyes widen.

And with that pain came a jolt of adrenaline, a firing of neurons. Synapses connected and electrical impulses moved. Code was overwritten. Systems on standby suddenly came to life. Declarative memory resumed. His brain re-booted.

Now fully aware, he looked at the three faces that were staring at him, and recognised the woman, who was standing in front of the sofa, scrutinising him carefully. He frowned.

"Doctor Cohen. Why are you here?"

"Do you know where you are, Sherlock?"

He made a face. "Of course, I do. Now answer the question. Why are _you_ here at my flat?" There was a distinctly hostile tone in his voice- he made no effort to disguise his anger.

"Because we are worried about you, Sherlock. You haven't spoken for three days. You've barely functioned at all, and were heading towards catatonia. Mycroft asked me to come here for my professional opinion. "

"Well, you can see that such an idea is ridiculous. I am fine. Just go away, all of you." He gestured with his right hand as if shooing a pesky fly away. Then he tried to lift his feet back onto the sofa so he could lie down again, but found John sitting beside him- blocking just such a manoeuvre.

His brother was standing by the fireplace. "What are you doing, Sherlock?"

"Minding my own business, which is what all of you should do."

"And just what is that business?"

"Piss off, Mycroft. It's none of _your_ business, that's for sure."

His brother walked over toward the sofa. He stood looking down at his brother, using his height to dominate, a frown on his face. "Explain it to me. _Why_ isn't it any of my business?"

Sherlock looked incredulously from Mycroft, to John and then to Esther. "What's going on? Why are you three here? What's happened?" There was the slightest tinge of uncertainty creeping into his voice.

A silence fell. Mycroft broke first. "You've been having flashbacks to the first time you broke your wrist. A melt-down, panic attacks- several of them. Can you remember them?"

"No, why would I want to? I must have deleted them. It doesn't matter."

Esther butted in. "Yes, Sherlock, it does matter. These are not normal reactions. They aren't healthy. They are your mind telling you something, telling you to pay attention to something that happened back then. So, what did happen, and why is the memory of it doing this to you now?"

"Doing what? It's only his word that these so-called reactions occurred. I don't remember them happening. Why should I? Whatever happened or didn't happen, the first time I broke my wrist was decades ago. It's irrelevant. I'm fine."

"You can't…

"That's not…

Both Mycroft and Esther started at exactly the same time to say something to try to convince Sherlock. Looking more and more angry, he cut them off, "Shut up! You are both wrong. _Leave me alone_!" Sherlock's face was flushed and he started to stand up. John knew he was moments away from getting up and storming down the corridor to slam the bedroom door behind him.

"**JUST STOP THIS!" **It was his parade ground voice that cut across the three arguing voices. A stunned silence fell for a moment. Even if he could convince Sherlock to stay, John knew how the rest of this conversation was going to go. Mycroft would argue, John would cajol, Esther would try to get Sherlock to understand. All three approaches were certain to fail.

"Right. Now that I have everyone's attention, Mycroft please sit down- you are making _everyone_ nervous by your hovering." John's voice was calm but very firm.

The elder Holmes gave him a scathing look, but then shrugged and backed away from the sofa. John pointed to the leather and chrome chair. A trifle reluctantly, Mycroft sat down.

John continued. "Doctor Cohen. Would you mind taking the other chair by the fireplace?"

She eyed Watson carefully, as if thinking through whether to go along with this.

"Please." John made his request firmly, but politely. His eyes said _Trust me, so _she did as he asked. John got up from the sofa and went over to the table, pulling a chair out and sitting down in it. He was giving Sherlock some space, so he wouldn't feel so threatened, and it seemed to work, as the pyjama-clad man did not get up. It was noticed by everyone in the room that John was sitting half way between Sherlock on the sofa and the two in the chairs. While fighting was a form of engagement, he knew it was counter-productive if they wanted Sherlock to recognise that there was a problem. To do that, John would have to get Sherlock to trust him, and then appeal to logic, not emotion.

"Sherlock, do you remember what you said to Reginald Musgrave after you told him that you'd solved the case in the first twenty four hours? He wanted to know why it had taken you four days more to come out with it."

Sherlock was eyeing John cautiously. "Yes, of course I remember."

John answered for him, so that the other two would understand his point. "You said that you would have done it faster if you hadn't been forced to spend 36 hours in hospital. Your injury clearly interfered with your ability to do the Work. That makes it…important, even by your standards."

Sherlock looked down at the sling with distaste. "I fell. Accidents happen. Tediously inconvenient."

The doctor was watching his friend's reaction. "Tell me, Sherlock- when was the last time you fell out of bed?"

"I fail to see the significance of your point, John."

There was steel in his voice, "Just answer the question, Sherlock."

His friend looked away. "I'm not sure. Probably when I was under the influence of drugs, most of which was before your time, but I'd guess it was also likely after the Woman drugged me. Why?"

"At Musgrave Hall you weren't on drugs, you were having a nightmare, weren't you? That's what made you fall."

Sherlock considered for a moment, then "I don't know. I have no recollection of it."

"Why would you delete that? Why would having a nightmare be so distressing, or debilitating that you would feel the need to delete it?"

"I don't know. I don't even know that I _was_ having a nightmare. That's your idea."

John pursed his lips. "Okay…moving on to something I do know for certain happened. You had a melt-down in the car on the way to the hospital. Why?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Because sometimes pain can trigger synaesthesia, and that can lead to a meltdown; it's a side effect of sensory processing disorder. You know this. What are you trying to imply?

"I'm not implying anything. Why did you, in the middle of that meltdown, start smashing your left hand and wrist with all the force you could muster?"

Sherlock went very still. "Did I?"

"Yes, Sherlock, you did. I'm not making this up. I was there and Brunton was driving. He saw it too. Why?"

He looked confused. The other three people in the room watched him think it through. Eventually, Sherlock muttered, "I don't know."

"Doesn't that bother you?"

For a moment, John thought he might have made a breakthrough, as he watched his friend process the revelation. Then the man's eyes narrowed, his chin set and a full-blooded glare erupted from those grey green eyes.

"No, it doesn't. If I deleted it, then it's irrelevant and that's enough for me. For the same reason I can't be bothered to remember who's the latest soap opera celebrity, or the fact that the sun doesn't go around the earth, or any one of a million other pieces of useless trivia that you seem to stuff into your heads. So, all of you, just _piss off._" Awkwardly, but still surprisingly fast, he stood up and was halfway out of the room before either of the two doctors could react.

Mycroft was just fast enough. Despite being the furthest away from him, his long experience of reading Sherlock made him recognise the signs of flight before the others. He was out of the chair and with three quick strides, he caught Sherlock by the right wrist, locking it in a firm grip. Given the younger man's forward momentum, the effect was to spin his brother around so he backed into the doorframe instead of carrying on down the corridor to his bedroom. There was a gasp of pain as the impact must have been felt in his left arm.

"_LET GO OF ME!" _ There was anger, but more fear and panic in that baritone. John was on his feet, too, and moving instinctively to protect Sherlock, when he felt Esther's hand on his shoulder. He glanced at her briefly. She shook her head and said quietly, "Don't interfere, John."

That's when he realised what Mycroft was trying to do- he was attempting to provoke a panic attack, to make it clear to Sherlock that it was a problem that needed to be dealt with, rather than ignored. And the tactic appeared to be working.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

**Author's note:**_this whole story is about the effects of PTSD, so angst is integral to it. **This chapter is not for the faint-hearted.** Stay away if you are susceptible to triggers regarding physical, werbal and sexual abuse. _

* * *

As the pain shot through his left arm and wrist, Sherlock tried to control his breathing but couldn't.

**(Error 7 0x7 ERROR_ARENA_TRASHED)**

The Mind Palace's storage control blocks went up in flames, and memories came pouring out of the stable door.

The grip around his wrist was too tight, the man was too strong. His blond hair fell over his eyes, but Sherlock could still see their murderous intent. _What did I do to make you hate me so?_

"You thought you were free, K_lootzak_. You always thought you were so clever, but this time, I'm the smart one. After I'm done with you, you will never ride again. And the _zwarte paard_? He'll be dead, too." Maes used his right hand to slam Sherlock up against the side of the tack room door. His other hand slid the bolt across. "You can't run, little _paljas_. You and me are going to have some fun before I finish you off."

The man's West Friesian accent sounded harsh and guttural. Sherlock always thought it crude, like a peasant's dialect. Nothing like Dirk Guilliams' beautiful French. _Concentrate!_ Now was not the time for his mind to go spinning off into linguistic differences. But, Geert's grip was so tight! He was spun around and dragged across the tack room. Sherlock shouted, "LET GO OF ME!"

Maes erupted in laughter. "Shout all you want- no one can hear. Only your _Seeröver._ And believe me, he won't rescue you. Soon enough you'll be hearing his screams. Ever hear a horse really in pain, Holmes? No, well, prepare yourself. Friesians can bellow like the devil when they are hurt. That big chest? Just made for screaming. I'm going to make you listen to him dying. It's only fair. After all, you're the one that's killed him, you and your smart mouth."

He let go of Sherlock's wrist, pushing the boy backwards so that he slammed into the tack table. Then he backhanded him, smashing a blow into Sherlock's left side with a force that sent him flying. The boy ended up in a heap on the floor by the barrel of special oat feed.

"Where's the smart ass reply now, _Klootzak_? Hmm? Going to run to Guilliams again? He's not here. It's just you and me." He laughed again. "Your white knight is off in London until tomorrow night. Want to try running to Daddy instead? Well, we both know how well that went last time, don't we?"

Sherlock got his legs under him again and struggled to stand up. "What have I ever done to make you hate me so much?"

"You just talk yourself big all the time. You're the better rider, the horse responds better to you. 'Maes, don't be so heavy handed', he mimicked the public school English accent. "You always think you are so clever, but every time you try to get rid of me, it just comes back and bites you." He pulled up Sherlock in one hand, hoisting him upright by the front of his shirt. As the teenager managed to catch a breath, he struck out with his fist to try to get the man to let go.

The blow landed with no power, and just provoked a roar of laughter from the barrel- chested man. "You _sukkel_. You call that a fist? Let me show you what a _real_ fist can do." He hit the boy twice in the abdomen and watched him crumple to his knees again, and then bend over and vomit violently.

"Ach- you are such a little English wimp. Puke your guts, pee in your pants and crap yourself for all the good it will do you."

He grabbed the black curls and yanked the boy's head up. "You know why you are getting this, don't you? You fixed it yesterday so Guilliams caught me with the knife, bent over the horse's hoof, ready to make sure you couldn't compete at Gatcombe." The man snorted in disgust at the vomit dribbling down the teenager's mouth. "I should have taken the knife to _you_. That was my mistake."

"Well, this time, I'm smarter than you. Everyone thinks I'm halfway across the North Sea, on a ferry bound for De Hoeck. I have the perfect alibi. When Guilliams fired me and put me on the train at Pulborough this morning, he didn't know that I got off at the next stop. I took the next southbound train, stole a bike at the station and got back here with plenty of time to plan this all out."

He let go of the dark curls and used his booted foot to shove the boy down flat onto the concrete floor. Still gasping for breath from the blows to his abdomen, Sherlock struggled to get his knees back under him, only to be kicked hard on the back, driving him down again.

"I've been hiding in the ceiling here just waiting for you. I've got time, plenty of time to do what I want with you and that horse, then cycle back to Pullborough and catch the last train. No one will ever know."

The flaxen haired man now pulled a switchblade from his pocket and opened it. Putting his knee into the small of Sherlock's back, he grabbed the shirt and used the knife to cut a great slice into the fabric. He then ripped it off the boy, and started the knife down the jodhpur waist band.

As his clothes were torn off him, gasping for breath, Sherlock started to struggle violently. Maes's fist connected with his side again and the boy stilled, the fight literally knocked out of him. Ragged breaths that were half sobs emerged as the Dutchman grabbed three stirrup leathers from the tack table and secured the spindly right hand and the two ankles. The left hand would be more difficult, because there was nothing conveniently close to hand. He sat back on his heels, looked at the alabaster skin of the youth. Already blue bruising was starting to emerge. He laughed again.

"Oh, such a soft one. That skin is like a canvas for my fists to paint on. Shame there won't be anyone to enjoy my handiwork."

Sherlock tried to control his breathing. He had to stop crying; it wasn't going to help. "How do you think you're going to get away with this?" he gasped.

"Oh, that's the easy part. Dead, burnt bodies don't leave much evidence. The leather will burn so no one will know you were tied up. Clothes burn off, so no one will know you were naked."

"You're going to burn the stable?" The boy could not disguise the horror in his voice. _I'm going to die and Pirate is going to die, because of me, because I couldn't stop this man from hating me. _He tried to think of something, anything that would make the man re-think his plans. "Setting a fire, they'll suspect arson, the fire departments always check. You won't get away with it. Just leave and I swear I will never tell anyone it was you."

Maes leaned down and grabbed Sherlock's chin, pulling it sharply to the right so the boy would be able to see him. "No problem on that score. You won't be alive to tell anyone anything. And they won't suspect me at all." He grinned, then reached into his jacket and pulled out a sheet of paper. "After I'm done here, I will fax this from the machine in the estate manager's office. It's easy to break into, the man's hopeless at remembering to close the window. Shall I read it to you? Only fair, really, given that it's your suicide note."

"_Father- He was fired this morning and sent away. I can't live without him, so I've decided to end it for good._" He sniggered, "They won't even bother to look for me. Your father probably won't even tell the police for the shame of it all- his poofter son, that's what he thinks of you. I made it look good- traced your signature, too."

The Dutchman put the paper back in his jacket, and started fishing amongst the leads hanging over the tack table. Then he grabbed the boy's left hand, and looped the lunge line around his forearm, pulling it tight before walking over to the cast iron water pipe that ran down from the ceiling. He tied it off, giving it an extra hard yank to stretch it completely taught before finishing the knots. Then he looked back at his handiwork.

"You look like one of those butterflies- you know the ones with a pin through them. Too bad I didn't bring a camera, I'd like to have a trophy. Put a picture of you up on my wall, to remind me of this."

Sherlock begged. "Please, let Pirate go. The horse never hurt you. He's a Friesian, like you. You're supposed to love them, how could you hurt him? Just open the stall door, he'll escape, and no one will know anything."

"Well, here's my answer to that little suggestion." He kicked him again in the side.

"What, no smart words for me now, eh?" The man bent down to look and realised that the teenager was unconscious.

Maes started to prepare. He'd taken three cans of paraffin from the gardeners' shed- supplies to run the greenhouse heaters in the winter. No one would notice them missing anytime soon. They were now open and ready in the ceiling space. He stood on the tack table and reached into the hatch above his head, pulling out the fuse - a strip of absorbent cloth cut from the saddle blanket now dangled down from the hatch. Once alight, it would take a few minutes to burn its way into the first paraffin can- enough time to send the fax and get on his bike and on his way.

There was only one task left before he lit the fuse. He turned the water tap on and half-filled the bucket, then upended it on the teenager, who spluttered back into consciousness.

"I want you to be awake for this, Holmes. Wouldn't be much fun if I couldn't hear your screams. Always thought you were an asshole. So, let's see just what I can get up it." He picked up the riding crop, and bent over the boy's buttocks.

Wet and cold, lying in his own vomit, and totally unable to do anything about what was about to happen, Sherlock whispered in despair, "Myc, where are you?"…

…Stuck inside the file, raging against the stupidity of replaying this particularly useless bit of memory, the system administrator tried for the third time to run the delete routine. It didn't work, so he just despaired and pulled the plug:

**(CTR_ALT_DEL) **

All systems began the shutdown routine.

Mycroft was trying to stop Sherlock flailing at him. Sherlock's eyes were open, but not focusing on anything. Then he suddenly stopped struggling, and both men heard the despairing whisper, "Myc, where are you?"

John saw Sherlock's eyes starting to roll upward, shouting "_CATCH HIM!" _ Luckily, Mycroft saw the same thing, and as his brother's legs started to give way, the taller man was able to shift his grip from the right wrist to around his waist, so he didn't crash to the floor this time. Then John was there beside him and together they brought him down in a more controlled fashion. John looked confused. "Mike? Who's Mike?"

Mycroft was taking the union jack cushion offered by Esther and putting it under those ridiculously dishevelled dark curls. "He means me; it's what he used to call me when he was young."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

* * *

John's fingers found Sherlock's neck, checking his pulse, which had slowed back to a normal rhythm. "Let's get him into bed."

Mycroft shook his head. "No, John. We can't let him avoid this."

The doctor exploded. "Mycroft, he didn't collapse as a way of escaping you. He's fainted before like this- the PTSD is just overwhelming him." He remembered his own reaction to the diagnosis- how he had denied it, argued against such a ridiculous view. He wasn't traumatised by being shot- he worked with blood, death and pain every day of his professional life. He'd been deeply mortified at the very idea. But no one had ever tried to provoke a flashback or a panic attack. They just waited until he had one and then recorded it. When it was played back to him the doctors asked him to diagnose the symptoms and the underlying cause. He'd been caught by his own knowledge. If they were to do the same with Sherlock, they had to use logic. "What you are doing is cruel, Mycroft, and indefensible."

"And that's exactly why fainting is his mind's way out of this. Subconsciously, he knows it's a get out of jail card, and he will keep playing it so long as we reinforce the behaviour."

Mycroft was now sitting on the floor, oblivious to the oddity of a three piece suited man cradling the head of a pyjama-clad Sherlock. "When he wakes up, we will be treated to a re-run of the conversation you've just had, John- he will have deleted memory of the collapse, and deny all knowledge of what he is trying so desperately to avoid remembering."

Esther looked away from the scene, digesting what the elder Holmes was saying.

John was outraged. "You cannot be serious. First you provoke an anxiety reaction, then you cause him pain by grabbing his wrist and backing him into the wall. That probably led to allodynia and now you claim _he_ is responsible for collapsing as just… an avoidance strategy?" John's disbelief made his voice rise along with his eyebrows.

"John." Esther's quiet voice tried to interject.

"What are you going to do, Mycroft? Just keep poking the memories in his face until you provoke a complete breakdown? This is _NOT_ the way to treat PTSD. Tell him, Esther. He needs to rest, recover slowly. You can't force this on him."

"John." Esther repeated her quiet appeal.

"What?!" The doctor tore his angry eyes away from Mycroft to look at the grey haired psychiatrist.

"Mycroft may be right." She held up her hands in a calming gesture when her statement started to provoke another outburst from John. "Just hear me out."

She looked down at the unconscious younger man lying in his brother's arms. "You haven't known Sherlock as long as I have, and neither of us as long as Mycroft has. And most of the time you've known him, he's been in a reasonable healthy state of mind. It's not always been the case. I don't agree with provoking him to re-live the trauma. I agree with you on that, so let's create a safe environment. You were starting on that and I agree it's the way to proceed."

"But don't underestimate his ability to manipulate us by using symptoms to avoid dealing with the fact that he has repressed memory. That takes priority over the PTSD. He won't accept the idea that he is even suffering from its effects if we let him dictate too much. Remember, Sherlock is a genius at avoidance strategies. At ten he chose elective mutism for seven months, simply because he wouldn't engage with a therapist. If we are to get him to admit that he needs help, to actually engage with it, then we can't let him avoid the conversation. I don't agree that provoking a panic attack is sensible, but you were starting down the right path before he just shut you off. If he thinks he can escape and repress the memory every time it comes out of the closet, then he won't get to the stage of accepting it."

John crossed his arms across his chest, the physical defensiveness telegraphed in his posture. "So, what are you suggesting?"

"We put him back on the sofa and get him awake. I don't suppose you've got smelling salts? They work a treat on that hypersensitive nose. If not, I'll just soak a sponge or handkerchief in something from under the kitchen sink. That will do it. Once he's awake, we start over again. If he runs down the corridor and shuts the bedroom door, then we open it and sit around the bed until he deals with us. If he knows he is going to be faced by the same questions every time, then the flight urge may be overcome by his own sense of logic- if he can't avoid it, then he will just get it over with. It's worked before. In fact, it's the only tactic that has ever worked. He thinks in transactional terms, John, so we have to get him to see the benefits of engaging."

She looked down at Mycroft. "We need to know how much he does remember, where the areas of his suppression are deepest. If you will agree to play by my rules, and not force him to go places he doesn't want to go, then we might make some progress. Are you willing to trust me on that Mycroft?"

The elder Holmes looked up at her. He was thinking it through. To help him make the decision, she decided to take a risk. "Look. You and I share a need here to find someone to blame for this. But it isn't Sherlock, that's for sure. So, let's try to lead the horse to water, before we ask him to drink, OK?"

Finally, Mycroft nodded. She turned her calm brown eyes onto the smaller man. "I know your instinct is to protect him, John. And I know that PTSD resonates a little too close to home for it to be comfortable for you. But, you have to accept that what might work for you won't necessarily work for him, and vice versa."

John wasn't happy. Not at all happy with what they proposed. But, he wasn't sure that his solution would be any better at getting Sherlock to realise the problem and be willing to do something about it.

oOo

That aristocratic nose twitched, wrinkled, and then the two furrows appeared over his brow. Esther pulled away the sponge that she had sprayed window cleaner onto- it had a high proportion of ammonia in the mix. Only seconds later, a huge sneeze erupted out of the man lying on the sofa. The violence of the sneeze moved his left arm, so his second sneeze was followed by a groan of pain.

"I'm sorry, Sherlock. But you need to wake up now." Esther's calm brown eyes greeted his grey green gaze, which looked decidedly annoyed.

"You did that…on purpose?"

"Yes."

The eyes closed again.

"And I will keep waving my sponge around until you pay attention."

That earned her a filthy look, as soon as his eyes re-opened. "Why?" It was snarled, rather.

"Because you need to pay attention."

"That's not a reason…._you_ saying that I need to pay attention is definitely _not_ a reason that warrants…chemical warfare. Go away." He closed his eyes again.

By now, John was trying to stifle a smirk. He was sitting in his usual chair; across from him, in Sherlock's leather and chrome seat, was Mycroft, looking impatient. Esther waved the sponge again in the general vicinity of that nose. Sherlock growled. "Get that _thing _away from me. What's so important?"

"Don't you remember what John said fifteen minutes ago? If not, then this is far worse than I thought." There was a slightly teasing tone to her question, but John caught the worry, too.

"John says a lot of things. What in particular caught your attention?"

"You asked him what was so important, and he said 'You are. Stop trying to ignore me.' I agree with him. You are the reason why we are here, and we are going to stay here, in your face, annoying you until you pay attention. Each of us has a question that we need you to answer."

There was a dramatic sigh from the couch, and then he struggled to sit up. "What questions?"

"Before we ask them, you are going to drink some tea." She thrust a mug into his right hand, and almost instinctively, his fingers wrapped around it. He looked at it suspiciously. "Why?"

"I'll show you why, but don't get upset when I touch you." She reached over and took a gentle pinch of skin from the top of his right hand between her two fingers. She ignored the slight flinch but they both watched the tented skin take a long time to sink back. "You're dehydrated. So drink the tea, and listen for a while."

He looked at his hand as if it had betrayed him, but then thrust the cup back at her. "You drink first. If you're willing to resort to chemical warfare, then who knows what's in the tea?"

She shook her head sadly, but took the tea and had a big sip. "Don't be paranoid. I'm not trying to drug you."

He took the cup back and started to drink, raising his eyes to look suspiciously at the two men sitting on either side of the empty fireplace.

"John?" Esther sat back down in the chair by the table. The three of them had discussed a plan, but like all plans involving Sherlock, there would need to be some improvisation, when he didn't react according to plan. So far, he was being more co-operative than they had expected. Mycroft was watching with his usual forensic eye- deducing his brother. Sherlock was studiously avoiding looking at him.

John cleared his throat a bit nervously. "You've always said that you can delete things you don't want to remember. You've just done it, I think. Do you remember me asking you about what happened in the car when we were on the way to Gloucester to get your wrist seen to at the hospital?"

Sherlock didn't say anything; he just took another sip of tea.

"Your short term memory is being…selective. Can you remember which of us took a hold of your right wrist ten minutes ago when you were on the way out of the room?"

Sherlock didn't answer.

"So, I'll ask it again, Sherlock. Doesn't the fact that you can't remember those things, doesn't that bother you? At the very least, this sort of lapse is going to mess up your ability to solve cases."

A shadow seemed to pass over Sherlock's face, then he broke eye contact with John. He put the mug of tea down on the coffee table. He dropped his head so that all Esther could see was the dark unruly mass of curls. His right hand was fisting in his hair, his elbow on his knee. His posture was defensive, curled around his injured left wrist. A quiet question emerged from the man. "How many times do you think this has happened?"

John thought about it, and started counting. "Five, I think. Could be more, ones I wasn't aware of. If you add today's two, that's seven in the past week."

There was a little huff of breath, then a tentative, "Do you think it could be physiological? An interaction of drugs maybe… at worst, a tumour or a TIA?"

John was stunned for a moment. He hadn't thought of that possibility. Every instinct of his was that this was psychological. But, Sherlock was being logical, using deductive reasoning to think his way through the problem. Eliminate the possibilities until what was left, so long as it was possible, could be the reason for the lapses. "I think it unlikely. But a blood test for the drugs idea, and a tumour could easily be disproven with a scan. With a TIA there'd be slurred speech, drooping facial muscles and I didn't see any of that."

The head came up and John looked into a face devoid of emotion. "So, if it's not physical, and your tone implies that you believe it isn't, then you think I am losing my mind." Dispassionate, cold, almost ruthless.

Esther stepped in before John could even attempt an answer.

"No, Sherlock. None of us here think that. You included. You are experiencing repressed memory. It can be fixed."

His retort was icy. "Dissociative amnesia has been discredited in many journals, Doctor Cohen. Looking to create some false memories? I have always believed you were not prone to faddism. Perhaps I was wrong."

The grey haired woman sat forward in John's chair. The baton had been passed from John to her, and it was up to her to keep Sherlock focused. "Not dissociative…rather, _traumatic_ amnesia. That has a much stronger basis in recorded observation. Given what I've seen today and what John has told me happened last week, I have no doubt that we could right now trigger yet another dissociation- a panic attack at worst, but certainly a repressed memory."

"Why would you do that?"

"To prove to you that this is serious and needs to be taken seriously. To get your agreement to get it sorted."

"Therapy." He packed every one of the three syllables with utter distain. "Oh, like that's really going to work." He unleashed his sarcasm. "You mean the sort of conversation where you're expecting me to say x, which would mean y, but you really want me to say a, which would mean b and that would change my behaviour, make me normal.* What a joke! I played those games as a child. It's just a case of figuring out what you need to hear from me in order to get you to unlock the door. Been there, done that and the psychiatrists have the scars to prove it."

John intervened. "You're the one who says your brain is a hard disk. Sometimes you have to call in the IT department, Sherlock. Not everyone can fix this kind of problem on their own."

"_Traumatic_ memory? _You_ think _I_ am suffering from post-traumatic stress?" He sounded incredulous. "What trauma? I'm not aware of any such thing."

Esther was calmness personified. "That's what we have to figure out. Unlike most PTSD that presents, we don't know the full facts about what is causing your dissociation. So, you need to recover the memory before you can deal with the symptoms. Then you'll stop having the current lapses."

"That's not what has happened in John's case. He remembers, and it still troubles him at times. Maybe repressing the memory is safer than remembering."

Sherlock had put his finger on exactly the point that was troubling John. He and Sherlock had never discussed his nightmares. He'd respected his privacy and left him to deal with it. John was aware of the memories that triggered them, but awareness had not stopped them from happening.

All eyes in the room fell on him. He sighed. "I'm not saying it's a 'cure'- my memories do surface in nightmares. But since I moved into the flat, nothing has triggered a flashback when I'm awake. And, at least I know when they are happening, which is more than can be said about you. Anyway, my situation is entirely different from yours. I've not had panic attacks or a melt-down and I am aware of what is happening to me."

Esther took over. "Sherlock, your experience means you suppress the memory of what you are going through now, to avoid remembering what it is that caused it in the first place. You can't keep running away, Sherlock. That's just not you. That's not the Sherlock I know. You've never accepted a weakness that can be overcome. Why would you be willing to do so now?"

The challenge hung in the air between them.

* * *

***Author's note**: I am grateful to Kate221b for this line. The idea of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy ever working with Sherlock is just impossible. Read her wonderful stories, The Box, Madness and Redemption and Dependency. Her Sherlock faces different demons than mine, but her medical understanding far exceeds mine.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

* * *

"You said you each had a question. I've heard one of them, and a lot of unevidenced speculation. What question do you want to ask, Doctor Cohen?" Sherlock's tone managed to convey both how fed up and annoyed he was with the conversation.

Esther sighed, disappointed that her challenge had provoked an avoidance strategy. Sherlock was not going to be easily convinced that dealing with the repressed memory was the best alternative. Not without a fight, not without a lot of convincing. She tried to think fast of a question that could bring him back to the realisation that he needed help.

"Ok, here's my question: I want you to think back to September 1994. You were fifteen, and I saw you at Harrow. Can you remember exactly what you told me about how you were injured, and what happened to your horse?"

"Exactly? Very few people could remember the exact words, Doctor Cohen, and my not being able to now would not be evidence of a _problem_."

"Then give me an approximation."

"You think I was traumatised by the death of a horse, and John thinks that my being around horses at Musgrave Hall has somehow…what? Triggered PTSD?" He made it sound preposterous. "That's ridiculous."

"Just answer my question, Sherlock."

He sighed. "Very well, for all the good it will do you. There was a stable fire, the horse was trapped and frightened, I tried to get it out of the stall. It smashed my left hand before kicking its way out of the stall. In the process, it impaled itself on a piece of wood." He held up his right hand, extending thumb and last finger as wide as it would go. "About that length, which punctured his chest and about a quarter of a mile later, he collapsed and died from blood loss." It was said quickly, in a slightly peeved, almost bored tone.

Esther was shaking her head. "All very plausible. It's what you told me and the School doctor, Mrs Wallace- pretty much anyone who asked got that story. But unfortunately, it's not entirely true."

He frowned at her again. "So, you were there, were you? An eyewitness who can argue differently?"

"Nope, but hospital evidence doesn't lie."

He finished off the mug of tea, setting the empty cup back on the table. "No such evidence exists."

"How do you _know_ that, Sherlock?" Mycroft's question was delivered quietly, but like a rapier thrust, it hit home.

Sherlock stilled. Then slowly, very slowly turned his gaze onto Mycroft. "Now I understand why you are here. If she can prove I am losing my mind, you're here to lock me away."

"I'm not your enemy, Sherlock."

The younger man got to his feet and turned away, looking out the window onto Baker Street. There was a dismissive sniff. "I beg to differ, brother, and my prior experience of being incarcerated under your orders proves me right."

Mycroft would not be parried. "You agreed to three questions- so, here's the third: what did father say to you when he got back from Indonesia that August? Did _he_ tell you to say what you just said about the fire, the horse, how you were injured?"

That made Sherlock look back at him. "You _know_ what he said."

Mycroft shook his head. "No, actually I don't, or at least not the way you are implying. His exact words to me on the phone in September were 'There was an incident- a stable fire. The horse is dead. Your brother broke his wrist, but he's back at school now.' Then he went onto discuss other things for half a minute, then the line failed. I didn't even know you'd been to hospital; you could have had the wrist set at a GP's surgery if it wasn't serious. "

Now it was Sherlock's turn to be confused. "Then why are you siding with them?" He gestured to John and Esther. "What you just said backs my version- this isn't important. Or, in your eagerness to lock me up, are you just willing to go along with any old diagnosis?" His voice rose, and anger crept in. He moved away from the window, to the centre of the room, closer to the hall to his bedroom.

Esther stood up. "Sherlock, please, just sit down. No one is trying to lock anyone up. That's paranoia speaking. Just… calm down." She was trying to get him to focus on her again because clearly interacting with Mycroft was provoking more of a flight response.

They had discussed what to do if Sherlock challenged their version. It was possible that he simply could not remember the truth. Or he might be aware of the truth but unwilling to admit it. On the one hand, she needed to take some of the heat out of the conversation before she could see which it was. On the other, she couldn't let him slip away from the problem.

"Sherlock, just sit down." She took her own seat again at the table.

"Why should I? This is just pointless. You said you had three questions. Well, I've answered three questions, so I'm done here."

She realised that if she didn't move quickly, they'd lose him. He'd go down the corridor, shut himself in the bedroom and make it impossible to raise the subject again. She had to keep him engaged in the discussion. "What if I could show you proof? The hospital records that you say don't exist? Would that make you stop and wonder why you have a memory that isn't the same as what actually happened?"

He had already turned towards the hall, but her words made him stop. He didn't turn around. "There are no hospital records. He would not have left anything to chance."

That comment chilled Mycroft's blood. "Who, Sherlock? _Who_ wouldn't have left anything to chance?"

Sherlock looked back at his brother, over his shoulder. "What difference does it make? Long ago and far away. Irrelevant. _You weren't there_, and now it's just pointless to even discuss it."

John could see that Mycroft was about to protest, but that would just take Sherlock further and further away from the real problem. "Sherlock, a half an hour ago, you were lying on the floor there in the corridor." He pointed down the hall to Sherlock's bedroom. "You collapsed because of a memory that you were reliving. Whatever the hell it was, it was bad enough to drive you to that state. And stuck inside that memory, I heard you. We all heard you say 'Myc, where are you?' So don't ignore the fact that he is here now. We all want to get to the truth, him included. If that means facing the fact that there are hospital records that show what you remember to be…less than the whole truth, well then, don't run away from it."

**(ERROR CODE 2 0X2 ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND)**

For a moment, curiosity beckoned. What were these mysterious records? He both did and didn't want to know, there was a dread right in the pit of his stomach, a burning flame. If he had deleted those memories, then there would be reason, and he was suspicious why now the three of them were conspiring to raise them again. He thought it very, very dangerous.

"No, I'm done with this."

As he strode down the hall to his bedroom, a message flashed up on his Mind Palace programme:

**(ERROR** **This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. Please contact your system administrator)**

He slammed the door hard enough to make sure they understood his answer, and he locked it, too.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**

* * *

Four hours later, Sherlock was still staring at the ceiling, working through the ramifications of the earlier discussion. He wasn't too sure about John, but clearly his brother and the psychiatrist believed him to be incapable of solving the problem. He knew he could, but the longer he left this, the harder it would be. He had to get somewhere private, where they wouldn't drug him and stop his ability to re-build the Mind Palace and clean up the mess left over from the system crash.

He'd heard voices discussing something loudly after he left the living room, but Sherlock decided to tune them out. He just didn't have the strength to spare. There were more important things he had to do in his Mind Palace. But it was hard to concentrate because he also heard John's voice. The tone was firm and angry in equal measure. Good, the more the three of them argued, the less likely it was he'd end up in a locked psychiatric ward tonight. He breathed a sigh of relief at that thought. He kept the audio device driver on standby- it would alert him if anything dramatic was about to happen.

Then he was cheered by the sound of Mycroft and Esther Cohen leaving. Whenever those two showed up in his life, Sherlock always worried about the possibility of ending up in rehab. _This time, I'm not even using_. It annoyed him, got him so angry for a moment that he found it impossible to concentrate on anything other than what they had been talking about. Hospital records? He _knew_ there weren't any. He'd done a check almost a decade ago. He was so determined that Mycroft would never find them and use them against him. That's what his father had said. "Keep quiet, or these will give me the means to put you away forever." He no longer remembered what it was that he had to keep quiet, he just knew that if he didn't, he'd lose everything. If by any chance they had found something, then it was even more of a reason to bolt just as soon as he could. If they decided that whatever they thought they'd found was enough to justify the confrontation he'd just been put through, then he wasn't going to hang around to let his father's prophecy come true.

He could hear John making a meal, the scent of pasta wafted down the corridor- a tomato sauce. Footsteps came, then a knock. "Sherlock, please eat something. I promise not to talk. If you want, I can bring it to you in there." He didn't answer. The footsteps went away. In the background, Sherlock heard the sounds of John washing up, the television and then the news. Finally, John went upstairs to bed.

That was the signal for Sherlock to come to life.

**(ESC)**

He got up from the bed and opened the drawer in his chest – the one where he kept his various "disguises". Out came the dark jeans and the tee, then the hooded sweatshirt. He found the baseball cap at the top of his wardrobe, the cyclist's headlamp and pulled out the cheap mac and a pair of scuffed trainers, already loosely tied; he could work his feet into these without having to mess one handed with shoelaces. He stuffed these, a sash cord, a tie that some idiot client had given him and a black plastic bin liner into a cheap backpack also pulled from the back of the wardrobe. Most important, he found the small red notebook from the bookshelf- his user guide and manual, he called it. The original coding that led to the Mind Palace directory structure. That went into the backpack, too.

Next, he moved his shoes from the bottom of the wardrobe, pulled the drawer out and the lifted the floorboard underneath to which he could now access. Why was it that people never thought of moving the 'immovable'? It was awkward with only one hand, and he had to do it carefully, so he didn't make a noise. Out came the survival pack, as he called it. Cash and fake driver's license, which went into the jeans pocket. He took a look at the other items, and then decided to leave them. Plenty more of that where he was going.

He took ages getting dressed; the sling kept being a nuisance. Finally he got annoyed enough to take it off and just deal with the pain. Actually, the pain helped him to focus. Although moving his arm to get the pyjamas off and the old clothing on hurt like hell, he'd learned how to dress himself on his own in these clothes a long time ago, and found the memory after a bit of searching. There were some advantages to having easy access to these memories again. He knew exactly what he had to do, and was not going to allow anyone- least of all Doctor Cohen or Mycroft- to interfere. They had been useless back then, and they would be useless now.

He moved very quietly down the hall, and then onto the stairs, listening. He stilled his own breathing, tuned out the noises of the refrigerator's hum. The doctor had left his door open. He knew John was still in the early stages of sleep, he'd learned what his sleep breathing patterns sounded like. Although he would have preferred to wait until the doctor was more deeply asleep, the need to move was too strong. No matter, he was capable of getting down the stairs without making a sound. Just walk slowly in socks on the sides of the steps by the wall, and miss out the seventh step, which creaked no matter where you stood. A minute per step and the brain of ordinary minds like John's or Mrs Hudson's would not connect the sounds if there were any.

Seventeen minutes later, he was out on Baker Street and at work on the next part of the plan- losing the surveillance man that Mycroft would have put in place. It took him all of twelve minutes. _You're slipping in your recruitment and training, brother; it normally takes me twenty minutes. _Twice in the final moments, he'd had to alter course to avoid patrolling black government cars, brought there as soon as his tail lost him. His brother had moved fast, but not quite quick enough. He had only one more road to cross before gaining access to the tunnel he needed.

Climbing down the iron ladder was tricky with one arm, but it was easier than getting the manhole cover back in place. To do that, he'd had to thread his damaged arm through the ladder so that he could trap it between his upper arm and side. A little precariously, he was then free to use his right hand to pull the cast iron circle back in place. He tried to ignore the fact that falling here would result in a thirty foot drop. When he did finally get down the ladder, his muscles were shaking from the strain and his brain was positively buzzing with the pain. He took a deep breath through his nose, to totally overwhelm his sense of smell. The overload stunned him for a couple of seconds, but it meant he would now be inured to the utter stench of the place. He slipped the black plastic bag over his bandage and splint, then used the useless tie to serve as a sling. No sense in exposing new sutures to the bacterial morass of the sewer. He pulled the mac out of the backpack and onto his shoulders. Then he found the headlamp, pushed it onto his curls and pulled the mac's hood over. Then Sherlock was off, tacking his way through the sewer system across London avoiding every CCTV camera, every traffic camera, every piece of Big Brother's watchful eye. He knew exactly where he was headed, but he was going to make absolutely certain that no one tracked him there.

oOo

John woke with a start, and for a split second, had no idea where he was. In the next three seconds, he considered and dismissed the idea that he was at Camp Bastion and that the noise he heard was an approaching Chinook helicopter carrying casualties. Then the sound registered properly- his mobile phone was on vibrate mode, and it was rattling at him from the bedside table. He sat up and touched the screen to bring it to life. As soon as he recognised the caller ID, he connected.

"Some watchdog you are, Doctor Watson." Mycroft's acerbic tone was like a splash of cold water in John's face.

"What's happened?" John switched on the bedside table lamp and started looking for his socks.

"He's bolted. And evaded my man. No sign on CCTV. Into the wind, and untraceable. Did you speak to him at all this evening?"

"No, he wouldn't open the door." John was now struggling into his dressing gown while walking down the stairs, juggling the phone from hand to hand as he put his arms through it.

"We should have put him in a secure place. I warned you and Doctor Cohen that this was likely."

John thought back to the heated debate the three of them had when Sherlock locked himself in his bedroom. Mycroft had been all for breaking the door down and taking his brother into care. John had argued against that, saying that forcing therapy on a reluctant Sherlock had never worked in the past, so he wouldn't be party to it this time. In any case, there was no evidence that he represented a threat to himself or to anyone else, so a section would be very hard to get. Esther just tried to stop the two men from coming to blows. She agreed that a section would be hard to justify, and that voluntary admission was highly unlikely. She admitted that she didn't know what would work, but arguing about it only made things worse. She eventually came around to John's side- the "let things settle overnight" strategy. He'd been sure that given space and reassurance, Sherlock wouldn't flee.

And as he opened the door to Sherlock's bedroom, he saw just how wrong he'd been. The place looked like a tornado had passed through. Clothes strewn about, shoes everywhere, the drawer gaping from the chest. And the sling was lying on the bed, forgotten. The wardrobe door was standing wide open, and when John peered in, he could see the floorboard was up. He reached in and pulled out a plastic packet, turning the contents out onto the bed.

"Oh, Sherlock." It was said with sadness.

"What have you found, Doctor Watson?" It was the formal title, not the familiar 'John'. Mycroft was really, really angry at him.

"Do you want the good news or the bad, Mycroft?"

"The time for clichés is long past. _What have you found?_"

"A stash- but he left the drugs behind. That's the good news. The bad news is that he's probably got cash and fake ID, he's left two credit cards behind- fake names. Looks like he's had a contingency plan all along."

"He's _always_ had contingency plans. That's why I wanted to move him into someplace secure. Well, Doctor Watson, there it is. My brother is having a mental breakdown and he is out on his own, hiding on the streets with no support. I hope you're happy." The call was terminated.

_Shit. _John sat on the edge of Sherlock's bed and tried to deal with the guilt that was settling around his shoulders like a shroud.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve**

**(Error Code 3 0x3 ERROR_PATH_NOT_FOUND)**

This was awkward. He was stuck and trying to fight the rising panic in his chest. The pathway into the bolt hole was difficult for an able bodied person. And right now the screaming pain in his left arm and hand were making him far from able-bodied. He took a deep breath, held it while reciting in his mind the first nine elements of the periodic table, then released it for the next three. Another deep breath taken in, and elements thirteen through twenty one went by. He kept going at it through the whole table. When he finished, he realised that the panic had eased. He wasn't stuck. He was just tired, and in pain. Wait a while and he'd take care of the pain- it was at the end of the path, like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. He could take all the time in the world. He wasn't stuck. There was no need to panic. He could stay right where he was. If necessary, he could even go to sleep in this position. As ludicrous as it sounded, it made him relax a bit.

Sherlock was squeezing between a ventilation shaft and the roof of a building, up against the outside wall. He had to go feet first and then wiggle his way along, using his one working hand and elbow, plus his bum to push himself the twelve feet he needed to go. It had to be feet first because there was a drop at the end, a fall of about four feet. He'd found that out the hard way, the first time he'd tried it. Once he got past this obstacle and got his feet down on the new level, the space opened up again and he would sit down and catch his breath before finishing the journey. He told himself it was worth it. Once in, he'd be safe. No one would interrupt him, he could do what he needed to do, rebuild his Mind Palace without risk of interference by well-meaning idiots.

He'd made this journey a total of six times over the past fifteen years, although always when he had the full use of both arms. It was the very best of his bolt holes, the one he called _Armageddon. _He'd found it by accident, when chasing a drug dealer who was behind one of the most audacious series of murders, trying to protect his territory. Sherlock was working with Lestrade and an idiot DI from the Drug Squad who was highly dubious about the consulting detective. Every one of four times, the murderer made no effort to disguise himself, yet within minutes of killing he disappeared. And stayed disappeared for weeks, but still managing his network remotely. It was a puzzle that nearly drove Sherlock crazy, until one night he got lucky. He was actually in a drug den making a purchase (all part of the disguise, he assured Lestrade- and took a regular drug test to prove he was clean; no need to explain that he was stockpiling the purchases for later use) when the murderer showed up and knifed the dealer in front of witnesses, him included. Most of the clientele were too high or too scared to care, but he'd followed the man to a street southeast of Kings Cross station lined with multi-storey office blocks. When the killer made it to the roof of one of the businesses, Sherlock was not far behind, but then the man just vanished. He had walked around an air conditioning unit out of sight, and never reappeared. Sherlock spent the rest of the night sitting on the roof trying to figure it out.

He didn't tell Lestrade about it, just said he'd lost him. But he did go back to the roof the next day, and the next night after that. He left a motion activated camera, one that would not betray its presence. And three weeks later, it caught the man on film, leaving. Sherlock had found the edge of the roofing felt that lifted up and revealed a small hatch. Without a thought, he dropped through it and found himself in the crawl space between the metal ventilation system ducts. There was electrical cabling and pipework as well, which meant it was a tight squeeze, but with his pocket torch he could see a possible way through. When he followed it all the way, he found the drop down- the hard way by falling four feet. And then he discovered the rope ladder down between the two office blocks. When he got to what he figured must be the ground floor level, he found a locked door. He picked it and entered a room that was perhaps fifteen feet long and about four feet wide. It had ventilation, power, water- even access to the sewer. But it was totally hidden in the space between the two buildings. It was stocked with everything the criminal could need to keep safe and out of sight for weeks. As soon as he saw it, Sherlock knew he had to have it.

So, when he caught the killer, on his own, before Lestrade could show up, he didn't stop the man from choosing to take his own life rather than face life imprisonment. He took possession of the hidden room a month later. Over the years, he'd put in it everything he'd need to avoid Mycroft for good. And then he stayed away from it as much as possible, so he wouldn't risk having it discovered.

He knew what he was proposing to do was dangerous. The first time he'd re-built his Mind Palace from the bottom up, he'd been looked after. The school had thought him depressed, he was just…busy. This time, there'd be no support network if anything went wrong. But, on the other hand, there'd be no one to tell him he was crazy or to stop him from doing it the way he intended to this time. It had taken him weeks before, because he had to maintain some semblance of ordinary behaviour, but this time he didn't have to, so he planned to do it in four days.

It was well over an hour later that Sherlock arrived in front of the locked door. He was exhausted and the pain was so bad that he was panting. The darkness was only broken by what his head torch lit up, but the edges of what he could see were going pink, so he knew synaesthesia was on the way. His clothes stank of the sewer and of sweat. His right hand was shaking so much that it took him ten minutes to pick the lock. He'd never found the key, just locked and unlocked it using his pick. Then he stripped slowly, gritting his teeth against the agony that burned in his wrist and forearm. He threw away the tie he'd used as a sling, and removed the black plastic bag hoping that it had given the sutures some protection from the sewer. The only thing that had kept him going was the knowledge of what lay on the other side of the door- relief. He dropped the smelly clothes outside. He then went in and used the tap to run two buckets of water, then grabbed a bar of soap and a towel. Then back outside the door he began to scrub himself clean, rinsing off with the second bucket. The water was cold and he was shivering before long, but in a way the sensation of scrubbing overwhelmed other sensations, so he kept at it until his skin was hot and red. If he was going to spend the next four days in a windowless room, he wanted to keep the smell of the sewer outside.

After towelling himself dry, he walked back in and turned the light switch on- a single low energy bulb in the ceiling stuttered to life. The electricity demands of the room were low enough to escape notice; the cable had been snagged from a bundle in the crawl space and re-routed here. He would keep the light on for only the shortest of times, to keep suspicions down. He switched on the fan, opened the ventilation slot and left the door open. In ten minutes stale air would be refreshed and he'd switch it off and close the door. Air would continue so long as the ventilation grid was open- it was hooked up to the same shaft that served the ground floor. The long life bulb increased in brightness as the gases began to get excited. He liked thinking about the chemical processes going on in the bulb, it gave him something to occupy his thoughts other than the throbbing in his arm.

He went to the metal shelving at the end of the room, and pulled out a plastic package, then ripped it open to reveal a cashmere blanket and a high thread count cotton sheet. He wrapped himself in the sheet, and threw the blanket onto the camp bed. Then he found the pair of very soft cotton socks and pulled them onto his feet. The room was cool, but not cold. Between two heated buildings, it managed to be insulated from the worst of the weather.

He drew out the last item and then shoved the backpack out of the door and closed it. Even the backpack had acquired an unpleasant smell from the sewer. The paper in the red notebook had a faint whiff, but he could stand it if he had to resort to the written codes. He put the notebook on the shelf above the bed- it would be in his line of sight when he was lying down.

He had a pee into the third bucket, then closed the tight top on it. He'd found it amusing that the drug dealer who built this room had not wanted to endure life imprisonment, but had spent weeks using a slop bucket inside a room not much bigger than a prison cell. The access to the sewer was outside, in the space between the two buildings- a pain to get to but it meant you could stay here for weeks if need be.

Now, at last, he was ready. He had been keeping the pain at bay with the thought of what lay inside the metal cabinet which he'd brought to the room years ago.

**(CTL_SHIFT_T) **

He opened a previously closed tab, the memory of what treasures lay within the cabinet. As he opened it, his eyes took in the various bottles and packets of powders inside. Built up steadily over the years, it was a significant supply of the cleanest, purest collection of class A substances that he could gather. Some he had made himself, to be sure of quality. Just the sight of them was enough to set off a dopamine surge that took his breath away. He closed his eyes and just rode his body's reaction to the very idea of drug use. It surged right past the pain and made him smile.

Doctors had been medicating him with drugs since before he could walk. He still found it hypocritical and deeply annoying that his self-medication provoked such hostility from everyone. He was an experimental scientist who knew his own biochemistry better than any pharmacologist, and knew just how to use drugs to manipulate both his brain and its transport system. Apart from one glitch six months ago that wasn't really his fault, he'd not used for more than two years. During that time, however, doctors had been more than happy to pump him full of all sorts of drugs whenever he was injured. He suspected that the current problems with the Mind Palace were in fact the result of two doses of general anaesthetic within the space of two days- enough to frazzle most neurotypical systems, let alone one as finally balanced as his.

First things first- he had to ease the pain and take a brief rest. His brain was too addled by the journey to begin the re-build immediately, so he would allow himself an indulgence. He opened the bottle of Oramorph, an oral liquid morphine. He preferred intravenous injection as a rule, but there were compelling reasons to take it without leaving any tell-tale marks. It would also take about fifteen minutes to take effect, by which time he'd be ready. The morphine and a two hour nap would be enough to prepare himself. He took a carefully measured low dose, and followed the bitter liquid with a swig from the first half litre bottle of water he pulled out of the plastic shrink wrapped set. He set aside four more full litre water bottles on the shelf above the camp bed. If he was to avoid dehydration, he needed the visual reminder that he must consume at least one litre a day.

Then he cut open a packet of powder labelled n-methyl-1-phenyl-propan-2-amine. He had eyed the other packets, but decided against cocaine at the moment. Injected cocaine resulted in a better high, and was incredibly useful to him when having to sort out a difficult problem that required intense concentration. But, the Mind Palace re-build was different, it needed stamina, too. So, he opted for Meth, taken orally. It had been a long time since he'd used crystal meth. He had always been wary of its longevity and its addictive character. He had never dared smoke it or inject it, but taken orally it did not have quite the same impact. Because it took a full three hours to reach peak levels in his blood, orally ingested meth didn't create a rush. The high was controllable, and the shoulder period was sustained rather than frenzied. He needed to do the dosages now, though, before he was under the influence of the morphine. He measured a dose very carefully, tipping it into the half litre bottle of water he'd just started drinking and gave it a good shake. He ripped the label off the bottle and put it under the camp bed. Then he repeated the exercise with another half litre bottle. Two doses would be enough. The stimulant would kick start the re-build, and keep it going for the first twelve to twenty four hours. Then, if he really needed it a second dose should finish the work. Much safer than the continuous top ups needed to keep a cocaine high going. And dissolved in water, it couldn't leave any tell-tale injection marks. It would also be well gone from his blood system by the time he showed at the clinic.

He cast a lingering look at the syringe kit. His body was almost quivering in anticipation.

_No, behave. _Oral was slower, but steadier. And that made it safer, too. He was only too aware of how long it had been since he'd enjoyed his last high. This was not about indulgence; it was about work.

He inserted batteries into the digital clock and set it on a countdown timer. He had ninety six hours before his appointment at the London Hand and Wrist Unit. As he sat down on the edge of the camp bed, he fervently hoped he wouldn't need all of that time.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen**

* * *

**Author's note: **Just when you thought you'd figured this story out, along comes a little case fic...

* * *

"What do you mean, he's not here? John, I _need_ Sherlock. I've finally managed to convince the Chief Super that the four earlier suicides in the last six months are linked- and that there is a chance they aren't suicides at all. Today was the fifth death, and it was the second in London, so the press is all over the Met to sort it out. Sherlock has been after me for almost three months to take it seriously and now that someone actually has, where's he gone?"

Lestrade was pacing. It was 9.15 in the morning and he'd arrived in a police car. John had heard the siren before it turned onto Baker Street, and the Detective Inspector was out of the car and halfway up the steps before the constable driving had managed to turn the flashing lights off.

John raised his hands in mock surrender. "I don't know. He left the flat in the middle of the night and I haven't seen him since."

That made Lestrade stop pacing. "Without his coat and scarf?" He pointed to the Belstaf and scarf still on the hook. Then he turned and looked down at the breakfast table. "And without his _phone_?" He sounded even more incredulous, if it was possible.

"Yeah…" The look on John's face said it all. He was worried, and the DI didn't need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure it out.

The steam went out of Greg's tone of voice. "What's happened? What's going on, John?" The need to work a case was now replaced by the need to know about Sherlock. John took some comfort in that fact, and it made it easier to explain, too.

"I don't know. He's …not been well since we got back from Gloucestershire. He broke his wrist out there, working on a private case. Not once, but twice within the space of two days. General anaesthetic surgery. Not nice. But, that's not the half of it."

"What do you mean?" Now the DI's impatience was replaced with concern. Sherlock getting injured in the line of duty on a case was not exactly routine, but over the years, Greg had learned not to worry too much. Physical injuries tended to get shrugged off by the consulting detective as mere _transport difficulties_. What John's tone of voice conveyed was something more worrying.

"While on the case, he had a couple of panic attacks and a melt-down, then the worst post-case crash I've ever seen. Something's got him worked up, but he isn't talking. Not to me, not to Mycroft, not to Esther Cohen." John dare not go into more detail. While he'd seen the hospital records, he was not about to blab about the trauma to anyone else, even someone like Greg Lestrade. If Sherlock wanted to do so, then it was his business.

"Shit, _Cohen_? She's involved? That's bad news."

John was surprised. His work with Sherlock at the clinic six months ago* brought him into contact with the psychiatrist, but he didn't realise that Greg knew her too. "You…know about Doctor Cohen?"

Lestrade pinned John was a stare. "Of course, I do. Sherlock and I go back before your time. Well, some of that time, she was on the scene. I've got to say, she's bloody brilliant. But then she'd have to be, to tackle Sherlock when he's being his usual bolshie 'I-know-best' self."

Greg pushed his hand through his short hair and blew out a breath of concern. "Well, if she's on the scene, that's him off the case, for sure. Has Mycroft got eyes on him?"

John just shook his head.

"That's really bad news. Doing a runner in the middle of the night…" The DI's subtext was clear enough, and John couldn't fail to pick it up- the worry that lay behind the 'pretend drugs bust' that John had been treated to on his very first night at Baker Street.

John gave him a grimace. "I sincerely hope it isn't what you are implying. Why you think he'd do that?"

"Hell, John; he's got form, hasn't he? Before your time, I know, but still, whenever Big Brother gets Cohen involved, it kind of drives Sherlock to it. Or, at least it has in the past. Did Mycroft pull his usual stunt of threatening to lock Sherlock up 'for his own good'?"

"Yeah."

The DI groaned. "Well that just makes sure he will run as hard as he can. Bugger!"

The doctor sat down a bit heavily in his chair. "So, where does he go when this happens?"

The DI's attention had switched from his serial murder investigation to a missing person case. He shook his head. "If Mycroft hasn't found him yet, then it means he's holed up somewhere out of reach. Over the years, his bolt holes are getting harder and harder to find, which ups the ante if he is using again."

The doctor's face was grim. "Can you keep an eye out for him, Greg? I know it's not likely you'll turn up something if he doesn't want to be found, but… he might come to you for help."

"_ME?_ I thought those days were long gone. If he isn't willing to talk to _you_, then it's not likely he'll come to me, unless you two…" Greg left the thought hanging but started pacing.

John's face said it all. "Well, I just might have been seen to take sides, the wrong side in his view."

Greg stopped pacing. "Well, the best cure I know to whatever it is that ails Sherlock is what brought me here in the first place- a nice, juicy, _impossible-to-solve-unless-you-are-Sherlock-Holmes _kind of case. All we have to do is find a way of getting him to pay attention."

John wanted something to think about, anything other than the fact that he felt so miserable. "What's the case?"

"Computer programmers- five dead guys across Europe and the UK who were working on some huge EU thing, involving over a hundred people from all over Europe. They're trying to build a computer that works like a human brain. Christ, I hardly know how to turn on my PC, so it's all over my head, and everyone else's in the Met, too. This isn't cybercrime, which is the only thing our resident geeks do. If Sherlock is right, then someone is busy bumping them off, but making it look like suicide. The latest was discovered this morning at UCL's IT labs."

While the DI was explaining, John started to think. Maybe this was the best way to get Sherlock to come out of hiding. "Greg, is there any way you could…hype it up a bit? Get it into the papers a lot? If he sees it, then maybe that will be…I don't know, distraction therapy. And get him to surface again."

Lestrade gave a little laugh. "That's easy. I don't even have to try. The press are already calling it the work of someone they've named 'The Geek Killer'. It'll be all over the Evening Standard mid-day edition and tonight's TV news."

oOo

That evening, in a penthouse suite of the Dorchester Hotel on Park Lane, a discussion was taking place.

"You've seen the newspaper coverage?"

"Of course. It's on the television, too." It was said in a self-satisfied tone.

The ex-army marksman poured the Irishman a glass of champagne. "So, round two has started then?"

James Moriarty took the offered glass and stood looking out over the east side of Hyde Park. A few early evening joggers slogged by, dodging the tourists who stood ogling the line of chauffeur driven cars arriving to drop off guests attending a very exclusive private dinner that night.

The sniper smirked. "If they're looking for celebrities, they're going to be disappointed."

"Oh, don't be so sure of that, Seb. The right people will see who is arriving. One minor official in the British Government will keep tabs on the dinner guest list. At least, I hope so. Engineering this good a collection of undesirable reprobates has not been easy. They've been hand chosen because they've got the money to spend on what I am selling. The auction starts tonight. Deal or no deal, within a week, every intelligence service in the world will be wondering what the hell is going on."

"Boss, I'm still trying to get how bumping off five IT squirrels can really lead to world-wide domination."

"I don't pay you to understand, my little tiger, just to follow orders." The dark haired slim man took a sip of the Crystal vintage champagne.

"Still, any army officer does a better job if they understand the basic strategy." Sebastian Moran was not going to give up easily. If he was ever going to convince Jim that he was worthy of being more central to the man's planning, he needed enough information to work on. And, for the life of him, he was finding the connection difficult to understand.

The dark eyes scanning the arriving cars broke off to look at Seb. "Okay- game-plan dumbed down for idiots, then." He didn't hide his sneer. Moran didn't mind. The goal was to get the intelligence, so he could keep up with his boss. If he had to admit to being stupid, he didn't care, so long as he got what he wanted.

"IBM's about to announce the biggest shake up in computing for the past sixty years.** For the past two years the Yanks and the EU have been competing to develop a whole new way of building computer hardware that breaks the mould of sequential operation – that's how today's computers and software work, by the way. It's nothing short of a revolution, Seb, and it will be worth billions and billions of dollars over the next twenty years."

He came up to the sandy haired sniper. "The new SyNAPSE project makes the computer mimic the speed and scale of the human brain. Even one as dull as yours is better than any computer." Jim tapped the side of the Seb's head, knowing that the act would irritate the military man. "They're building a new class of distributed, highly interconnected, asynchronous, parallel, large-scale cognitive computing architectures. Got that?" He smirked at Seb's frown. "No, didn't think so. Lucky for you, I have other people working for me who do."

The Irishman gestured to the cars lined up. "Tonight I get to tell that specially invited audience that I already have one- a prototype- that allows me to break into any old fashioned computer, and to outsmart any of the new synaptic processors they are building. A little string of code can make all the difference. And I'm the only one that's got it. Then I announce the terms of the auction."

Seb frowned. "I get that part. I just don't understand why five blokes who look like they haven't left a lab in their entire existence needed to die. Not that I'm complaining, but they were kind of…too easy to kill, even when rigging it to make it look like suicide. "

Moriarty sighed. "Putting the pieces together never was your strong suit, was it, Seb? With each death, I've left important clues behind. If only the police were smart enough to spot them, but of course, they're not. Even the local spooks will struggle- and will need a certain consulting detective to help them. He just _loves_ serial suicides so will jump at this one. When that certain someone explains how they were murdered and picks up the clues I've left, they will come to oh, such the wrong conclusion! It's so _eeeasy_ to play the Holmes boys. Just deliver something overly complicated, make it look like I'm selling it to the highest bidder and, oops, Bob's Your Uncle- they'll fall for it. Can't wait. I've been bored the past six months. Now the game is finally going to get started again." His smirk grew into a full-blooded grin and then blossomed into outright laughter.

* * *

**Author's Note**: *****this is covered in my story Side Lined.

**The IBM SyNAPSE project and the EU Human Brain Computer project actually exist. This is cutting edge revolutionary stuff- so interesting!


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter Fourteen **

* * *

"Mister Stephens, I am grateful that you were willing to make the journey into central London."

The elderly man came into the Stranger's Room of the Diogenes Club leaning heavily on his stick, but his handshake was still firm and there was a bright spark in his eye. As he sat down in the leather wingback chair opposite the man in a three piece suit now sitting down as well, the attendant offered him his choice of a cup of tea, "or something stronger, sir? Perhaps a whisky, or gin and tonic?"

It was after five pm, so Robbie Stephens accepted the Scotch with a bit of ice and a splash of water; both men waited quietly until the servant left the room.

"Well, cheers, Lord Holmes; it's not every day that a retired Chief Superintendent gets invited to drink with someone as exalted as you. And ever since your man telephoned, I've been dying of curiosity. How can I be of service to you, M'Lord?"

"I don't use the title, Mister Stephens. Plain 'mister' is more appropriate for a minor official in the British Government."

The former policeman looked at the man sitting opposite him. He had used the title, because unlike most people who came into contact with Mycroft Holmes, Stephens knew the estate in the county of West Sussex, the ancestral seat of the Viscounts of Sherrinford, which was in his former jurisdiction. He'd had no personal contact with the heir of Viscountess Violet Holmes either before or after he inherited his father's side of the family wealth when he was 22. But, Stephens knew about him. One did in the force. Rumours abounded about just what the son had become.

"You've been retired for twelve years, Mister Stephens, but served in the West Sussex force for twenty three years."

"Yes." Why did he feel that this was like the opening questions one asked a suspect in a crime? He suddenly felt rather uncomfortable.

"I'd like you to recall an incident that occurred in 1994."

"An 'incident'?" The grey haired man cautiously took another sip of the rather excellent scotch.

"Yes, as I understand it, the police were not called on the night of the 17th, but the Fire Department reported it to the police as suspected arson on the next day. Does that match your memory?"

The seventy year old thought back to the month in question and realised that the Viscount's interest was…personal, rather than professional. The tension in the muscles of his back tightened a little. "It does."

"So, I'd like you to tell me what happened when you investigated that report."

The elderly man snorted. "Nothing. Nothing at all. There was no case ever filed, no proper investigation. You can relax, M'Lo…Mister Holmes- the secret is safe. Nothing was ever recorded on any police blotter."

That provoked a thin-lipped almost predatory smile on the younger man's face. It reminded Robbie of his father's look. He'd gone to the house and seen Richard Holmes when he got back from an overseas business trip. The Assistant Chief Constable as Stephens was then wanted to impress Holmes, an important person in the county, that he was taking his responsibilities seriously. It had been a seriously bad mistake. He'd left that conversation quite shaken by how close he'd come to a career-limiting move. And, for the second time in a minute, he was reminded of the similarities between Richard Holmes and his elder son.

Then Holmes sighed. He was clearly annoyed as he reached into his pocket and removed a mobile phone, eying the caller ID. "Excuse me, Mister Stephens, but I must take this call. Please enjoy your drink. This won't take a moment." Holmes took the call with no greeting, listening for a moment. Then he just said "Very well. I want to know the name of everyone attending. Get ears in there, somehow, and a full file on my desk by the morning."

The elderly man realised that the call had ended without a goodbye, and that Mycroft's attention was now fixed on him with an intense expectation. The younger man returned to the earlier point. "I want you to recount the conversation you had with my father. I need to know exactly what was said. So, please think carefully, and take the trouble to remember it as accurately as possible."

As Stephens took another sip of the whisky, the ice cube moved in the glass, bumping up against his teeth and giving them a jolt of cold like an electric shock. He was a little confused, so decided to play safe. "I was told to forget the conversation had ever taken place. So, this puts me in a bit of an awkward position."

"I can ensure that it will be much more awkward, Mister Stephens, if you do not co-operate." It was mildly said, yet Robbie felt his skin crawl. As much as he'd felt discomforted by his conversation with Richard Holmes, this discussion was putting it into perspective. The man sitting across from him did not need to threaten and bluster to get his co-operation, as had his father. It was the implied menace that lay behind every word that made Stephens realise he had better come clean. _How does he do that?_ The former chief constable decided that Holmes took the aristocratic authority from his mother combined with the money and influence of the father and then added those to his chosen profession – well, it created one hell of a scary package.

The old man cleared his throat, self-consciously. "Well, let me start at the beginning. The West Sussex Fire & Rescue service delivered their report on the fire at the estate on the afternoon after the fire. It was brought to my attention simply because of whose property it was. Arson is a crime. Sometimes, it's just teenagers playing with matches in a run-down neighbourhood, but we did try to maintain good relations with the big houses, so the view was I should take it up. I called the house, and was told that your father was away, out of the country, expected back in about three days. I was put through to the estate manager. He told me that the fire was insignificant, in a purpose-built equine facility away from the main house or any other estate buildings. He had spoken to your father on the phone who had decided it did not warrant 'wasting police time' on an investigation. I thought that a bit odd; most property owners want a police report so they can claim on insurance, particularly if the Fire service was suggesting that the blaze was deliberately set. I left my number and said I would contact Mister Holmes when he returned."

"And when he returned?"

"No one telephoned me, so I decided to pay a courtesy call about a week or so after my first call. I didn't want anyone to think that we did not take a crime like arson seriously."

"You met my father?"

"Yes. He wasn't best pleased to see me, I have to say. Told me in no uncertain terms that he didn't care if it was arson, he didn't want it investigated. I explained about the insurance requirement, and he just laughed at me. I remember his comment 'do you think we can't afford to replace a burned out building?' It felt odd, and I didn't exactly warm to the man. I think I might have said something along the lines that it didn't matter what he intended to do, we still had a duty to investigate a crime like arson. It might not be an unoccupied outbuilding next time. If the public was at risk, then we had a public responsibility."

The older man took another sip of the whisky. The ice had almost completely melted now, because the hand that was holding it was warm. Stephens felt the heat of the gaze that had not left his face since he started talking.

"Please continue." Despite the words used, it was not a polite request.

"Your father's attitude changed rather abruptly. He said that he knew who had set the fire, and that there was no threat to anyone else. The crime would not be repeated. He had no intention of pressing charges, either."

"I was surprised by this. I replied that it might not be a civil case where his pressing charges mattered, if criminal intent to destroy property was clear. That's when he told me about your brother."

"What about him?" The question was asked very quietly.

Stephens almost squirmed under the intensity of the gaze. "Are you telling me, Mister Holmes, that you are not aware that the fire was set by your brother?"

"Is that what my father told you?"

"Yes, of course. He said your brother was …not quite right in the head. The boy had a fight with the horse trainer who'd gone off back to London, and your brother was mad enough to try to burn down the barn, him and the horse included."

Mycroft Holmes slowly sat forward in his chair. "And you believed him? Just took him at his word?"

The old policeman had the decency to look offended. "Well, I did ask for proof."

"And what 'proof' did my father provide?"

"He showed me a suicide note- faxed to him in Jakarta at midnight on the night of the fire. He'd already left the hotel for a breakfast meeting, and didn't pick it up until five hours later, when he got back, by which time I think someone at the estate had told him that the boy had survived and was in hospital."

Holmes sat back in his chair, adjusting the line of his waistcoat while he considered what Stephens had said. Then another quiet question, "Do you remember what the so-called suicide note said?"

Stephens drew breath. "It was over twenty years ago, so can't say that I can roll it off my tongue word for word. But it was something along the lines of some bloke being fired that he 'couldn't live without' so he was going to do himself in."

Mycroft just closed his eyes for a moment. _So, it must have been Guilliams. And like an idiot, I offered Sherlock the man's photographs. _He had been sent the package of photos by the trainer's nephew, when he cleared the man's estate. _Cancer was too easy a death, under the circumstances._ He came to life again. "Was the fax hand-written?"

"No, but it was signed. But, in any case, if I'd had the slightest doubt, then your father sorted that out straight away."

"How?"

"He took me upstairs to where your brother was lying in bed. He'd been brought home from the hospital that morning. Your father walked in with me in tow, and asked him outright- 'Tell the police, Sherlock. The stable fire, the death of your horse- are they are your responsibility?' The boy could hardly speak, it came out all croaky and rough, but it was a definite yes. And then your father pulled out the fax he had showed me, and asked if the boy had sent it. Again, your brother said yes. Then your father told him to tell me what had happened. Out came a wheezy couple of sentences about setting the fire, but then being unable to get his horse out of the stall. He didn't want him to die, but couldn't get him free. That's when he got bashed up and the horse was fatally injured."

The older man finished his whisky. "The lad looked awful. Really torn up about it. He was all bruised and battered, his arm was in a cast; he could hardly speak. Smoke inhalation, according to your dad. Just looking at him, well, I figured he had suffered enough. He certainly looked remorseful, so I didn't have the heart to ask anything more."

Mycroft raised a hand to his forehead and rubbed it slightly, as if coming down with a headache. "And what happened after that?"

Stephens realised he was in the home stretch of the story and decided to be as quick as he could. "Well, we went back downstairs again. Your father said that your brother was mentally unstable and that he'd spent time in an institution before. He didn't want any publicity, no police investigation, nothing that would drive him even more crazy. He said the boy was under a psychiatrist's care, and that he would really, really appreciate it if I forgot that the conversation had ever taken place, which I did, until now."

"Well, Mister Stephens, I am grateful for your candour now and your discretion before. I am going to be rather like my father now, something I _very_ rarely admit to being. I want you to forget that this conversation ever took place." He stood up.

The former policeman stood up and shook the offered hand. "Mister Holmes, for what it's worth, the crazy things we do in our youth can be put behind us. I'm really glad these days to read about your brother's crime solving work- the cases in the newspapers and on that blog. It seems he came good in the end, you know."

Mycroft gave him a thin smile and walked him to the door. "Thank you, Mister Stephens. My driver will make sure you are returned home. I am grateful for your willingness to meet me, and for your continuing discretion. Good Evening."


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter Fifteen**

* * *

Sherlock opened his eyes to see a series of strange symbols, lines and curves outlined in red, the only light visible in the otherwise total darkness. He realised he had to change the visual orientation.

**(ROTATE_SCREEN_90_DEGREES)**

He sat up on the camp bed and looked at the red lines again as they connected with a stray visual basic programme.

**46.12** Then the last numeral changed. **46.11**

He groaned. He realised he was more than half way through his allotted time in the locked room. A_nd nowhere near solving the problem_. He put his feet on the floor, trying to ground his sensory memory with the cold of the concrete that went straight through the cotton socks. It set off an involuntary shiver. He stood up and staggered a bit in the total darkness with no reference points. He made it to the wall near where he thought the door would be and found the light switch.

Even at the low light of the energy efficient bulb, he gasped, the brightness hitting his visual cortex like a stiletto in both eyes. His left arm ached with a pain that he'd been able to ignore until now. The two bottles of meth in solution were long gone, the empties rolled under the camp bed. And he was coming down fast from the stimulated high. He felt awful. _How is it possible to feel both nauseated and hungry at the same time?_

He knew that this was the meth talking. And it hadn't even been worth it. His Mind Palace was still in a total shambles. No, actually, it was worse by far than when he started the process. The directory re-build had not only failed; the hard drive was now fried, damaged beyond repair. He had flung his head torch across the room and torn up in rage the red notebook with the fifteen year old's pencil scratchings, the codes to be used in the build programme. Totally useless. Every time he thought he'd managed to put some code together, it just slipped away from him. The neat divisions between declarative, sensory, short and long term memories had been literally blown apart. There was nothing left to string together, just a maelstrom of memory. None of the build tools seemed able to corral the processes into the proper order, the way he needed them to align in order to control what he was. The failure left him pole-axed by despair.

He had no idea what to do. He sat back down on the camp bed and began to rock backwards and forwards without realising it. He felt utterly drained, and all he wanted to do was something to stop the chaos- forever. The idea of trying to cope with a brain that was malfunctioning this badly just…was too impossible. Already, he felt the sensory overload- the scents in the room disgusted him, the visual stimuli were too intense. He could hear his own heartbeat, the sound of his own raspy quick breaths. The cotton sheet was damp with his sweat and made his skin crawl. And all this data just poured in and stopped every other coherent thought from emerging out of the chaos. The pain in his wrist was a stabbing sonata of atonal jolts every time he moved. They tasted pink and made him even more hungry.

He couldn't live like this. Without his Mind Palace to manage the sensory flood, he'd just drown. He fisted his right hand into his hair and pulled, trying to use that pain to override what else was taking hold. He could feel something moving down his face. As it reached the curve of his top lip, he tasted it with his tongue to find that it was salty and wet. _Oh, wonderful. Now I can't even control emotions_. But it wasn't physical pain that was driving the tears; it was utter despair.

He thought about what was in the metal cabinet. He knew there were no magic bullets- no drug could control the mess in his head. The morphine would only be a form of procrastination, the heroin merely a temporary respite. Neither could help him rebuild. The meth hadn't worked. Cocaine's intense high might make him feel better about his failure, but it couldn't make the old build code work any more effectively. He'd just reached the limitations of his mental capacity to control what was going on in his brain. _I've lost my mind_. Literally- the structure that made it possible to create order out of his sensory and memory chaos was gone, nowhere to be found. The barriers he had established, the narrow channels to control emotional outflows- they had been swept away by some tsunami. He felt the full force of the Spectrum Affect just grab his brain and shake it like some wild beast killing its prey.

He wondered if this is what "normal" ASD people felt like all the time- a brain that just functioned without conscious control, a rapacious maelstrom that frightened him. He could hardly think of anything other than the immediate moment, the pain, the sensation, emotions. It was quite simply terrifying. He wanted to bang his head against a wall, to punish it for betraying him so badly.

_Do something, ANYTHING!_ He realised that if he left it much longer, then he might not be sane enough to make a conscious choice. He could just lose all sense of where he was or how to function, lapsing further and further into insanity until dehydration or starvation killed him- a slow lingering horrible death. But if he left, then there was a chance he would be found and then he might end up in an institution, imprisoned in another tiny cell like this one, with no hope of escape. He couldn't let that happen. He had to avoid his brother at all costs, or face a perpetual slow lingering death of a different kind.

Trapped, with no way to fight or flee, panic was making his heart beat faster. The room was now too small, too horrible. The criminal who had spent weeks in here hiding out was a stronger soul than Sherlock. He could not bear the thought of dying here. The idea of it was so pathetic, so wretched that he was willing to go through the pain of leaving, just to see the skyline of London one more time. Yes, that goal would help him keep the storm at bay just a little longer. Make it a conscious choice. If there was no Mind Palace, then he wanted no part of this life, but he'd choose the time and place when he would end it.

Now that he'd made up his mind, he found some energy to go to the shelving and pull out another sealed plastic container. With a shaking hand, he drew out a change of clothes. No time to wash, even though he was disgusted with himself. He fumbled and struggled, but slowly managed to get dressed. Black socks, then black trousers. A black turtleneck sweater, he rolled the left sleeve up before pulling it on, failing to stifle the cry of pain as it slid over the bandaged sutures, the back splint on his forearm. _What does it matter? No one can hear me_. He flattened one of the empty water bottles, then used it as the other side to the back splint the hospital had fitted. He wanted more protection, wrapping gauze around and around the plastic to give more rigidity to the broken wrist bones. He was crying with the pain of it by the end when he rolled the sleeve down to hold everything in place. Then he tore a corner of the sheet into a square, and made a sling.

The clothing made him feel warmer, and gave him some semblance of normality which he clung to like a drowning man to a piece of flotsam. He went to the medicine cabinet and removed the bottle of pre-mixed seven per cent cocaine. Then he broke open the syringe pack, and struggled one handed to fill three substantial doses. The first to enjoy, then when the high started to ease, he'd take the second as the piggy back which would probably kill him, but to be sure, the third would be ready to be his safety net. He snorted at the idea. _Safety net? _ Well, yes, if the choice of place and timing was to be his. He replaced the plastic caps on the needles, and wrapped the three in a gauze bandage, then slid it into the sling, up tight and held in place by the splint. He picked up the head torch from the floor. Luckily, it had not broken when he'd had his tantrum. He put it on. At the door, he looked around the room one last time, and then started the journey back to the world outside.

oOo

At exactly the same time as Sherlock made his decision to find a better place to die, John was sitting in his chair, looking at the empty leather and chrome seat opposite him, as if willing it to be full of a long-limbed Sherlock. Right now John would cheerfully accept every acerbic snide comment the man could deliver about how stupid his flatmate was, about how unobservant, and incapable he was of making the kind of flying deductive leaps that Sherlock made without even seeming to try.

In contrast, John was earthbound, slow and thick. His limbs felt heavy with exhaustion. Guilt had driven him onto the streets for the past two days and nights, trying to repent for his unwillingness to let Mycroft have his way and put Sherlock into a secure place. He'd been unable to sleep except when sheer exhaustion took hold, and then it was never for long. He'd woken up from a brief nap this afternoon shouting from a nightmare. This time it wasn't Afghanistan. It was the sight of Sherlock dead in an alley, in a pool of blood, both wrists cut with the man's own ridiculous antique razor. John had gone into the bathroom to reassure himself that the implement was still there. He'd stood in front of the basin in the harsh fluorescent glare with the open razor in his hand, thinking of how Sherlock used it every morning in the shower. John remembered his disbelief the first time he had realised. "You're telling me that you use it without a mirror, with wet hands, slippery from soap and shaving foam? Are you crazy, Sherlock? They don't call that thing a cut-throat razor for nothing, you know."

Sherlock had just smirked at him. "I have a hypersensitive sense of touch, John. I don't need my eyes to find my face."

John had spent hours tramping about London in the vain hope of finding his flatmate. ("_Pointless waste of time, John; if I can hide from Mycroft and Lestrade, then there is no chance in hell of __you__ finding me."_) As if to taunt him for his stupidity, John's mind was now cheerfully supplying the running commentary that Sherlock would have been saying if the man had been with him.

"Yeah, well, we aren't all blessed with a Mind Palace, Sherlock." That muttered retort raised a tiny rueful smirk on the doctor's face. "See what you do to me, Sherlock? Now I'm the one who is talking when you're not here." He addressed his comment out loud to the empty chair.

He knew that Mycroft had done everything possible. Every hospital and clinic had been alerted. Social services across London and the police had been alerted that if anyone reported a six foot tall dark-haired blue-eyed person because of suspected mental health problems that it had to be instantly communicated. CCTV from both public and private sources was being monitored 24/7. Every known drug dealer in town had been contacted privately and advised that a large reward for information, no questions asked, no repercussions, was available should anyone fitting the image in the distributed photo approach them. John had contacted Sherlock's homeless network; Raz trusted him enough to get the message out. If Siggy was unwell, and someone got eyes on him, they'd let him know.

"Hoo-hoo." There was a gentle tap at the door from Mrs Hudson. "I've brought you a late night cup of camomile tea, dear. You really mustn't fret. He'll be back. I'm sure of it."

John took the tea, but found it hard to raise a smile. She didn't know what he knew about the events of 1994; she hadn't witnessed the panic attacks, the melt down and collapses. She didn't know how serious it was.

The elderly woman looked sternly at him. "Now, John. It's not like you to be so…pessimistic. Sherlock's done this before, you know - gone off on one of his little walk-abouts. Sometimes things just get too much for him. That Detective Inspector can tell you; it used to happen a lot. Sometimes, Sherlock would be gone for days from his old flat on Montague Street. Turned up on my doorstep here a couple of times. Once he was in a bad way- over indulged a bit, but then had the sense to come find some place safe to come down. A couple of nights on my sofa and he was alright."

The doctor didn't want to worry her even more. Underneath that kindly tone, he knew she was worried, too. So, he gave her a weak smile of reassurance. "Good night, Mrs Hudson. If I hear anything, I'll let you know."


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter Sixteen**

* * *

When Sherlock finally emerged onto the roof, he drew in deep breaths of fresh air. The night air was cool, and the roof was damp- a recent shower. No more than ten minutes ago, judging from the puddles. He listened to the sounds of London around him- traffic, the distant siren, the last trains coming in and out of Kings Cross station, the hum and buzz of life. Even at this hour- just before midnight, he found the sounds were what he expected, a background hum that was somehow comforting. He tried to get his bearings. This part of town was boring- the commercial buildings lining Pentonville Road were not high enough to give a good skyline, which he resented. He like the idea of _his_ city being the last thing he saw. A rundown area just southeast of a train station didn't quite fit the bill, unfortunately. But to leave in order to find a better place was to risk being caught on camera and then ending up his days inside four walls painted an institutional colour, subdued into a state of drugged purgatory. He wondered how long his body would be up here on the roof before someone discovered it. For the first time, he thought about what others would think. _Why does that matter?_ It seemed to be some defect of this stripped down, basic brain- random thoughts just came crashing in, unbidden. It was most peculiar.

His frustration with the location went up a notch or two when it started to rain heavily. He realised the absurdity of caring that he was getting wet, whilst having an internal debate about where the best place was to kill himself. Yet, somehow instinct was running its own program and he found himself in the doorway that he had left propped open almost two days ago, looking down the stairwell and wondering if he was the only one in the building. He hoped so. The ignominy of being found and "rescued" would be too horrible to bear.

That reminded him of a comment that John once made to him, when he'd learned that Sherlock had once taken a lethal overdose. "Well, you must have been seriously off your game. The Sherlock I know would be successful if he really wanted to die. Or was it the cry-for-help kind of overdose?"

That time, he'd been unlucky and been found before the drug could kill him. So, this time he would leave nothing to chance. But thinking of John worried him. _God, is this what it's like to be 'normal'? I can't control anything of where my brain goes_. Odd tangent, but he found himself wondering if John's reaction this time would be different.

He wouldn't understand. Sherlock was sure of that fact. And there would be consequences. At the very least, his death would cause a significant upheaval. John would have to leave Baker Street, unable to afford the rent on his own. And the tremor, the limp would probably reappear, once the adrenaline push of case work disappeared. That seemed unfair. The doctor would somehow think the suicide was something to do with him, take some sort of responsibility. John was like that. He wouldn't be able to deduce the truth. Sherlock didn't understand it, but he knew that John would be distressed.

He sat on the top stair step and wished that he had a way of telling John that it wasn't anything to do with him. If he'd brought his phone, then he might have sent a text or left a voice mail message. _No, just turning the phone on would alert Mycroft to where you are._ He couldn't risk it. And in any case, he'd left the phone at home.

_STUPID! _ _You are in a building full of offices with PCs linked to the internet. Who needs a phone?_ He got up and walked down the main stairs. He was looking for the right sort of business- one not likely to have a lot of security, the sort of place where busy people forgot to turn off their computers at night or who were too lazy to log off.

On the second floor, he found it. Arial PR Ltd- they'd have reasonable technology to impress the clients, but no sense of discipline about security. He picked the lock, and walked in. Not a camera in sight. He scanned the open plan office, then spotted the walls of glass in the corner that announced a senior manager. He could see from the doorway the green light on the PC tower. Switched on and running. A shove of the mouse brought up the home screen, so no need to guess a password. _Bliss_.

And there was a sofa. _Wonderful_. He could even be comfortable. He then tried to figure out what to say to John. Although the desk was covered with yellow sticky notes reminding the CEO of inane things to do, he took a few pieces of paper from the printer tray and a pencil, and started to write. After the second sheet was crumpled and chucked on the floor, he began to question the wisdom of trying to explain. The latest iteration was much, much shorter than the first, but it still didn't make sense- _John. I'm sorry if this makes no sense to you. But, without the mind palace, I don't want to be me. It has nothing to do with you. I'm sorry for the inconvenience. _

It all sounded ridiculously banal and stupid. Furthermore, he couldn't risk sending it, because knowing Mycroft, he would have put surveillance onto the doctor's e mail account and his blog, just in case. He should have known this in the beginning. Why was his brain working so _slowly_?

That made him think about what he should say to Mycroft. He filled a whole sheet with angry permutations, mostly around the theme of _you've never understood what it is like to be me, what actually goes on inside my head; the mind palace is the only thing that kept me sane, and now that it's gone, there is no point. IT'S NOT THE DRUGS TALKING. I'm sorry I couldn't live up to your expectations, but I never agreed to them in the first place. But to say this to your face would give you just another excuse to lock me away. _When he scanned the page, he realised how pathetic it all was. He collected the pieces of paper and put them through the shredder by the woman's desk. He gave up on the idea of a note, because anything he wrote made him sound crazy.

He _was_ crazy- mad, deranged. He knew he had no choice but to end it, shut off the incessant noise going on in his head forever. His brain then went haring off on another tangent trying to find all the synonyms for insanity that it could locate amongst the shattered debris of memory. To shut it up, he pulled the package out of the sling and unbundled the three syringes, taking them over to the sofa. _There- the end is in sight, so just shut up._ The voices in his head carried on, regardless. Then he turned the computer screen so he'd be able to see it from the sofa and typed in the URL for his favourite London webcam, on the top of the Marriott County Hall hotel on the South Bank. He would look at that while the first injection brought him some peace.

The new window opened in a customised screen layout that had four news sites showing headlines. _Typical PR- one eye on the media at all times_. He grabbed the mouse to see if he could get the webcam window to open full screen.

As he closed the second news site window, his eye was caught by a ticker going across the bottom of the BBC website: _GEEK KILLER TAKES FIFTH VICTIM; MET ACCUSED OF SLOTH BY IBM_

He sniffed. At last, Lestrade might finally get the point. He'd been going on about it for months, ever since the so-called suicide of Andrew Saxton at Imperial College. Sherlock had been unable to find conclusive evidence that proved that it was murder, not suicide, in the case of Saxton, so the DI had not been able to take the case. The coroner's verdict was suicide, unfortunately. Then came the death of another programmer in Switzerland, then one in Brussels and in France on almost the same night. Lestrade's only comment had been "Not my jurisdiction, Sherlock."

Now it would appear that opinion had changed. He wondered if Lestrade would be able to put the pieces together on his own. He clicked on the news story, wanting to know more.

_Jonathan Fryer, aged 31, was found dead in the UCL IT lab by a colleague on Tuesday morning. While initial investigations concluded that suicide was the likely cause of death, the Metropolitan Police started a murder investigation this morning. _

_Fryer was a computer programmer working on the research team of University College London's cognitive computing team, specialising in programming language for machine learning algorithms. His work was funded by both the EU and IBM, as part of the SyNAPSE (Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics) project. In August 2011, IBM researchers successfully demonstrated a building block of a novel brain-inspired chip architecture based on a scalable, interconnected, configurable network of "neuromorphic cores" that brought memory, processors and communication into close proximity. These new silicon, neurosynaptic chips allow for computing systems that emulate the brain's computing efficiency, size and power usage. _

_Fryer's contribution was in the area of "corelet" programming, the building blocks of the new computer language needed to run on the new SyNAPSE chips. Asked for a comment on his colleague's death, research team leader Robert Smith said…._

Sherlock stopped reading. The media would get it wrong. But at least he had the latest victim's name now- and the fact that a Murder Investigation Team was at work. He closed the news windows, and minimised the webcam screen, before calling up the HOLMES2* database, typing in Lestrade's user name and password. He then called up the recent postings under Lestrade's MIT and was rewarded with a report and attached evidence files. He started reading.

For three hours he concentrated against the noise of his dysfunctional brain, hacking deep into UCL and Imperial College's intranet and through it into the personal data files of Andrew Saxton and Jonathan Fryer. Their work on corelet programming was utterly fascinating, but Sherlock skirted around it as much as possible. His brain was too easily distracted, all he wanted to know what had led to both men being targeted. Find the motive and the evidence would come.

It was in a Tweet from Saxton to Fryer that produced the first 'Oh' moment.

** - check out lines 73 to 98- a greek bearing gifts?**

Sherlock looked at the corelet from the library that Saxton had been working on. He struggled at first to understand the corelet programing language. It was like finding out that gravity fell sideways instead of down; a whole new physics of computer. IBM's public library of corelets were no help, because the programmes were designed as 'black boxes'- the rest of the world was just to accept what lay hidden behind the IBM trademark and focus on using them to build interlocking sets of drivers to use them. He'd had to hack into one of them on Saxton's files before he could get at the underlying neuromorphic structure. _Weird. _Instead of a binomial sequential and linear entrance and exit, the corelet was not only circular, it was 3 dimensionally round, and a connection could enter the program at any point. It took a while to get his head around that concept, but once he did, it make sense. What Saxton had called "lines" were in fact SyNAPSE connections, and it was only when he thought of things three dimensionally and then added the fourth of time sequencing, that he understood the presence of an intruding sub-routine that had been buried in it, which was, indeed, a Trojan Horse- definitely not being used, dormant but ready to be awoken by some malware virus. He wondered who would be clever enough to figure that out and bury the routines? It could fatally compromise the security of any new system using the corelet. The brain that had thought up this little nasty surprise was clearly willing to kill to make sure that any programmer building a corelet who stumbled on it was not going to live to tell the tale.

A glance at the lower right corner of the screen gave him the time- 04.49. His brain was finding it increasingly difficult now to sustain concentration. The Work had kept the demons at bay for a while, but he kept having to re-read things. Information stuffed into a temporary working file kept bulging at the seams, and then would leak away. He cursed his stupidity and knew that if he had been functioning properly, he could have solved this within minutes of finding the program. He sighed, it was so frustrating. If this is what a normal brain worked like, then he would happily put himself out of his misery- once he'd solved the case. Even as defective as his mind was at the moment, he still knew that Lestrade would not be able to solve this without him. _A parting gift; after all, if it hadn't been for his willingness to let me do the Work, I wouldn't have lasted this long._

He needed a pee. And a stretch. He wondered if there was a coffee machine in the office. Arial PR was probably too small to warrant one, but he'd look for a kitchen or a coffee maker. He glanced at the three syringes lying on the sofa arm. If he'd been in his right mind, he would not hesitate to take half of one dose- the high would ensure he cut through all the rubbish, focused and found the solution. But, with his Mind Palace so shredded and malfunctioning, he dare not try the cocaine- it could actually make the problem worse.

_Later. Once I'm done with this one last case._

* * *

* The HOLMES2 database (Home Office Large Major Enquiry System) actually exists.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter Seventeen**

* * *

_I am the world's biggest idiot_. Sherlock was standing in the glass walled office of the CEO of the PR company on Pentonville Road. It was 5.59 in the morning and he had just had the most important epiphany of his life. Just moments before, he had solved the Geek Killers case, and put the details into two e mails now sitting it the draft folder of the PR company's CEO. One would go to DI Lestrade telling him where to find everything he needed on the HOLMES2 database and the universities' systems, and the second e mail would go to his brother, with the same information, and quite a bit more telling him about the security implications of a new computer code that could not only infiltrate and undermine any current security program, it was being built into the next generation of computing, too. No one would be invulnerable.

The fact that it had taken all night was testament to the fractured state of his Mind Palace. The CEO's office was littered with yellow sticky notes and A4 sheets blue-tacked to every conceivable piece of glass or wall. He'd had to externalise and write down things that he used to be able to keep in his head. With no functioning memory apart from visual basic, he felt like he was trying to use fat crayons to write microscopic text- intensely frustrating and tediously slow. If his mind was forced to operate in the future using such a crude language, then he'd rather stop right now. Only the need to solve this one last case kept him going _in extremis._ Now that it was over, he could return to the task at hand. The three syringes were beckoning.

Both e mails were in the draft box, ready to send. He'd only do that when he was so far along on the second dose of cocaine that even if they were able to track the IP and get a location, it would be way too late.

And then all of those ideas were swept away in a single moment. "_OH!_"

"Of course. Corelet. I've just been using it to solve the case. It's _perfect_." He breathed this out loud. It didn't matter that there was no one to hear him.

His grin grew and he started laughing. He had a way out, a worm hole to escape the debris of the Mind Palace. He'd use corelet programming concepts to build it from scratch. He started to pull all the notes and sheets off the walls and bundled them into an envelope. They'd be useful in a few days' time, when it came to explaining to others how he'd solved the case- for once, sufficiently dumbed down so even idiots could understand it.

He opened the desk's second drawer and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. The woman CEO was obviously a smoker, and the scent in the room showed that as boss, she decided to smoke indoors no matter what the law said about "public places". He took them and the ashtray; she'd probably assume it was some 'do-gooder' on her staff that had nicked it. He then sent the e mails to a drop box account that he'd set up ages ago under a false ID. They'd sit there until he was ready. Then he deleted all references to the work he had done, and shut down the computer's screens.

By his estimation, it would take him the best part of a day and half a night to build a new Mind Palace using corelet. Even this defective brain of his could do it; he'd just proven that by solving a case involving the program language. All he needed was a quiet place. He'd seen the _To Let_ sign over the old un-refurbished building on the other side of the one he was in now. It looked very unoccupied. He could access it via the back of this building. Even if there was no power or water on, it wouldn't matter. With blue-tack, felt pens, blank paper and yellow sticky notes he could manage it in visual basic. He bundled his materials into a carrier bag found under one of the open plan desks. He swept the three syringes off the sofa and back into the gauze, slipping the package into the sling. _Waste not, want not. _He'd have to find a good place to stash it back at Baker Street. But, he certainly didn't think he'd need the contingency plan anytime soon. By 6:19 am, he was ensconced in his new venue, beginning to re-build the ground floor foundations of his Mind Palace.

oOo

Mycroft Holmes was facing yet another particularly punishing schedule today, and it was annoying, especially given the fact that it followed an equally horrid day yesterday. He usually enjoyed these meetings- his favourite chess board on which to play his particular kind of strategy. But like any Grand Master, he had his off days, too, and yesterday had proved to be one. The session with the Prime Minister had not gone well. Coalition politics meant that the man would say one thing in a closed room with Holmes, but then find his coalition partners forcing him into a u turn the moment they could get their teeth into him. At times like these, Holmes regretted the current trend of UK politics towards consensus. Strong leadership and an authority backed by large parliamentary majorities had advantages.

That frustrating morning had been followed by a set of back-to-back meetings with top level security liaisons from France, Russia and the USA. The French were incensed at recent revelations about CIA surveillance in Europe. It was a case of _amour proper_; their egos had been dented because they were not aware of it occurring. _Of course, the CIA is spying on you; they spy on us, they spy on everyone. _But he hadn't been so blunt. The Russians were asking for British intermediation behind the scenes, trying to rescue an arranged summit between their President and the American President. _Then you shouldn't have offered asylum to the latest US military whistle-blower, should you?._ But, he couldn't say that in so many words, either. And the Americans? They were just being bloody minded, as always. His relationship with Langley had deteriorated recently, as the Bond Air project stuttered forward, slowed down by budget cuts and an over scrupulous Cabinet Secretary wanting to look tough.

That afternoon had been followed by a state dinner, which he'd been obliged to attend. It was not often that the Queen put down a marker that required his presence, but this had been one such night. He'd used it to brief the new Equerry on how to handle the princess's next overseas goodwill trip to Africa. Perhaps a round of refugee camp visits and seeing how the other half of the world lived would sober up her playgirl party image. Then he'd had to endure the tedious conversation of the Secretary General of the Commonwealth, an Australian who fancied his chances when he returned to Canberra politics next year.

Normally, none of this would have mattered. He prided himself on remaining at peak performance irrespective of any day-to-day pressures. Mycroft Holmes was known for playing the game long, for keeping his cool no matter how hot and bothered others were. But, yesterday he had snapped at several of his staff, because he was also uncharacteristically distracted. It was now 7.30 in the morning, and if anything, his mood had grown worse overnight, not helped by the fact that he had suffered uncharacteristic insomnia.

"My dear, really! Was this the best they could manage?" Mycroft's impatience was telegraphed in no uncertain terms by the tapping of his umbrella on the floor, as he stood beside his PA's desk. He gestured with his other hand at the file he had just handed her. "I asked for ears in the room- and instead someone can only manage photographs. I _know_ who these wretched people are, what I wanted to know is what was _said_. The team had a full day yesterday to process the scene. Something, anything more valuable than these wretched paparazzi shots should have come in by now."

"I understand, sir. But, the private dinner party was…very private. There was a jamming device on the whole time the guests were in the room, so external listening devices didn't work. We didn't get enough notice about the actual room to be able to put anything cabled into it. The host brought in his own catering staff, and no one on the Dorchester payroll, including several of our informants, was allowed anywhere near the room."

Mycroft frowned. "What is the Dorchester playing at? They've never allowed that sort of abuse of their rooms in the past. Even their corkage contracts require a physical presence." Mycroft seethed. Foiled by yet another of the Irishman's dark angels.

His PA ignored the irritated tone. He wasn't angry at her. And if letting off some steam helped him find his usual equilibrium, then she was glad that he felt comfortable enough in her presence to do it. "All I could get from the catering manager is that he'd been told by the hotel owners, the Brunei Investment Authority, to allow anything this client wanted.

Mycroft knew that Moriarty was back in town and that the man's Dorchester dinner had drawn a group of guests that graced the Most Wanted Lists of a dozen countries. But, for the same reasons that he had never arrested the Irishman before, he wouldn't be doing so now. Every one of the thirty two countries where the man had operations was in exactly the same bind- put him behind bars and the man's contingency plan would ensure he got out within days. For every day he was held, an increasingly public crime would be committed. Sooner or later, the arresting authority would throw in the towel; they'd never get the evidence to convict, and the man's dark angels made holding him…politically painful.

He realised that he was still tapping his umbrella against the side of his Oxford brogues. He frowned at his foot, and stopped. "What _else_ have you come up with?"

"Sir, we spent yesterday tracing the calls and the departures of every one of those guests. _Something_ is being…auctioned. Sold to the highest bidder, but exactly what is being sold is not clear. If the discussions going on in the networks of the people who attended are to be believed, the sums involved are staggering."

For Moriarty to reappear just when Sherlock had disappeared was nothing short of excruciating for Mycroft. At times like these, having Sherlock safely back behind the locked door of a rehab facility or a secure psychiatric facility would be the best of all possible worlds. And given what Mycroft had seen of Sherlock two days ago in Baker Street, he needed the treatment that was provided in such places. He was worried about his brother's mental health, and at the same time dealing with his own vulnerability. _If Moriarty gets his hands on Sherlock in this state, I have no idea what will happen._ If Sherlock found out that Moriarty was back in town, there was also no way of knowing what stupidity he might get up to. And that thought was worrying Mycroft more than anything else on his day's agenda.

His PA was watching him, with sympathy in those dark eyes. "I'm sorry, sir. I know it's been three days. You know we are doing everything we can to find him." She knew what was really bothering him. He sighed, and asked her to hand him the files for today's set of meetings.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter Eighteen**

* * *

John spent yet another fruitless day searching for Sherlock. When he finally returned at almost midnight, he'd dragged himself up the stairs and fell into bed, at last sleeping from total exhaustion. After three nights of worry and broken sleep, it all caught up with him and he slept deeply.

When he woke up the next morning, it took him a moment to recognise the sound that had probably brought him back to life- running water. Upstairs, his bedroom was under the loft space- where the flats' water tanks were, so it was a regular sound to his ears. He glanced at his bedside table - 7.12am on the clock radio. What was nagging at him? His sleep fuddled brain started to wake up. The noise of the tank refilling wasn't the one he associated with Mrs Hudson. That was further away and to the left of his room. The movement of water through pipes was definitely related to 221b. had he left the toilet running?

No- this was a sound he associated with a shower. The shower that was next to Sherlock's bedroom. As that conclusion came to him, he was already out of bed and then half way down the stairs. In through the kitchen and down the hall, his ears confirmed it- someone was taking a shower.

"_Sherlock?_ Is that you?" He banged on the door, loud enough to be heard over the running water.

There was a pause, then a baritone over the sound of running water, "Who else would be having a shower in here, John?"

The doctor sagged against the door in relief. Which lasted only a couple of seconds before being replaced by a highly volatile mix of concern and anger- enough to make him open the door without worrying about proprieties. Sherlock rarely conceded anything to John's personal boundaries, and right now, John was in no mood to accord Sherlock any privileges either.

"Where the _hell_ have you been for the past four days?" It sounded angry as the question echoed off the tiles.

The shower was turned off. A hand emerged from behind the curtain. "Hand me the towel."

Considering the alternative was a naked Sherlock getting it himself, John hastily complied. "Are you getting your bandage wet?" He realised that his tone was a bit peevish.

The hand with the towel disappeared behind the curtain, and there were sounds of a body moving around. Then a left arm and hand wrapped in a wet bin liner appeared from behind the curtain. "No. I've done this before, John."

Mollified in part, John decided that retreat made sense. "I'll get dressed and be in the kitchen making us both some tea and breakfast. You and I need to talk." It was his captain's I-will-not-be-disobeyed tone. It rarely worked with Sherlock, but it was all John had in his arsenal at this hour of the morning. As he got dressed in his room, he heard the hairdryer down stairs.

A freshly shaved, clean and suited Sherlock joined him at the breakfast table, looking for all the world as if nothing was unusual, nothing out of order. He gave John a calm "Good morning, by the way" as he sat down and opened the newspaper, propping it up against a pile of books so he had free use of his right hand to take the first mouthful of toast.

"So, that's it, Sherlock? You just waltz back in here after four days and three nights away, and pretend that nothing has happened?" The incredulity was clear.

Sherlock looked up from the paper. In a perfectly calm and reasonable tone of voice he said "I didn't waltz. I walked. And nothing untoward has happened."

John lost it. "The last time I saw you, you were on the edge of a serious breakdown, Sherlock. I was there. So was Mycroft. And Doctor Cohen, too. And then you bolted in the middle of the night…I've been looking _everywhere_ for you. Your brother alerted the hospitals _and the morgues_, for God's sake. Lestrade even had social services leafleted in case someone found you and you weren't able to communicate."

Sherlock took another bite of toast, and calmly said "All of which sounds rather excessive. I'm fine. I left because none of you seemed to think I was, and that generally ends badly in my experience. But, as you can see, I'm fine."

John was trying to keep his temper, he really was. And then he realised that Sherlock was right. He did look…fine. Not on edge, but calm. In fact, calmer than he'd been for quite a long time, if the truth be told.

"Are you on something? Is that why you are so...relaxed?"

The old Sherlock would have snapped at that. This one just looked at him curiously. "No. I'm not taking any form of drugs or medication. I'm fine- and I'm clean. This isn't anything… artificial." He went back to reading the article.

"Sherlock. What _happened_ while you were away? Where did you go? NO ONE could find you and believe me, there were a lot of people trying to find you."

If John was expecting a sarky comment, he didn't get one. His friend was looking at him thoughtfully. "You want to know what I did while I was away from the flat? I needed time to build my Mind Palace- without interference, so I found a place where I wouldn't be interrupted, and did it. Oh, and I solved Lestrade's case, too." He turned the newspaper over to the inside page where the front page article continued.

"WHAT?!" John was astonished.

"Yes. I will e mail him with the details while I'm in the cab. I have an appointment in twenty minutes at the London Wrist and Hand Unit at Wellington Hospital. Or had you forgotten?" Once again John was pleasantly surprised. The old Sherlock would have made that last point as a snide aside, casting aspersions on John's memory. This Sherlock had just said it without rancour or malice.

"You've …_rebuilt_ your Mind Palace. What does that mean? Is that the reason why you are acting so, I don't know, normal?"

That made Sherlock's eyebrows go up in surprise. "Normal? You say that as if it were a bad thing." This was quietly said.

John put his mug of tea down. "Who are you, and how did you take over the body of Sherlock Holmes? You look like him, but you sure aren't acting like him."

That raised a smirk. "Just think of me as Sherlock Two Point Oh. New improved software; better performance. Now, as much as I'd love to chat, I have a doctor's appointment to keep." He got up and headed for his coat and scarf on the peg.

"No way, Sherlock. I'm coming with you. The idea of you voluntarily going to a hospital is weird enough to warrant closer observation. And I want to know what they say about that wrist."

That made Sherlock turn around once he got his coat on. He slipped the sling back on but looked intently at his flatmate. "It isn't necessary for you to accompany me. I can manage."

John slipped his own coat on, "yeah, but that fact is almost cause for concern, in its own weird way." And he followed Sherlock down the stairs.

The cab journey was short- less than ten minutes north from the flat- which Sherlock spent on his phone. Wellington Hospital was a private institution, rather than NHS, based in St John's Wood. There were four buildings, but Sherlock didn't go to the parts that John was familiar with- the buildings that were on Wellington Road, just north of Lord's Cricket Ground. Instead he directed the taxi driver to Lodge Road and to something called the Platinum Medical Centre. Sherlock approached the reception desk at the entrance to with John in tow. "I have an appointment to see Mister Ian Winterspur at 9.10. Is the Unit still on the first floor?" The receptionist smiled and nodded. Again, John was surprised. It was as if Sherlock was using his "let's-act-normal" disguise to get something he wanted from the receptionist so he could solve a case. But this wasn't a case, this seemed…genuine. It was, in John's view, almost as alarming as the other extreme, when the consulting detective's default mode offended just about everyone he came into contact with.

The two of them sat in the Unit waiting room, which was very comfortably appointed and had three other patients waiting. The receptionist took Sherlock's name and said that Mister Winterspur was running on time, so it would be only a few minutes. She invited them to have a cup of coffee from the coffee maker in the reception area. John muttered something about "how the other half lives" but gratefully took a cup of coffee. _If only NHS hospitals could produce coffee like this._

As Sherlock started working on his phone again, John picked up a LW&H Unit brochure from the coffee table, and looked under "Our Team". Mister Ian Winterspur's photo showed a kindly grey haired face. The bio underneath declared that he was a consultant surgeon practicing exclusively in private practice. Trained in both Britain and the USA, he had been working in private practice in London since 1993. John wondered if Sherlock had been one of his first patients then, back in 1994. There was another paragraph explaining that he had "a particular interest in musicians", written a text book called _The Musician's Hand_ and that he was a trustee of the British Association of Performing Arts Medicine.

And the man himself was now standing in front of Sherlock with a big smile on his face. "Sherlock, it's been a long time. I'm glad you're still playing the violin- or at least you were until last week."

"Mister Winterspur, this is my colleague, Doctor John Watson, a former army trauma surgeon, who seems to have taken an interest in my recent injury. Would you mind if he accompanied me?"

"Of course not; Doctor Watson, it is a pleasure to meet you in person. I am a reader of your blog. Like to keep my eye on former patients, you know. That's how I know he's still playing the violin."

The examination went…better than John would have anticipated. Sherlock must have been in touch with Winterspur earlier in the week about how to get the original x-rays and surgeon's reports from the Royal Gloucester Hospital. "You were lucky, Sherlock, to get Will Masters- his work is first class. But how on earth were you unlucky enough to break it twice? That's rather careless of you."

Sherlock just replied "Accidents happen. And unfortunately, you know that general anaesthetic doesn't agree with me, so I had another fall. A nuisance, really."

John's brow furrowed. Where was the bored, irritated reaction? Where was the discomfort and nervous agitation that Sherlock usually displayed when anywhere within the vicinity of a hospital or a person in a white coat? The consulting detective was calmly discussing the fracture, the stryker plate and the likely course of therapy that would be needed to restore full functionality.

He watched as Sherlock sat still and the sutures were removed. X-rays were taken and digitally presented on screen immediately. A nurse was called in and the thermoplastic cast was fitted, using a microwave to heat it first and then when the black plastic was flexible enough, it was moulded exactly how Winterspur wanted the bones to be supported. Ten minutes later, the cast was cool and rigid, strapped into place, and in a sling. There were distinct advantages of it over plaster- lighter in weight, cooler and less bulky, it would mean he could wear normal shirts, just with the left sleeve unbuttoned at the cuff.

Winterspur's assessment was encouraging. "It's really not too complicated this time. You'll be able to play again in a few months, but you will have to take it easy. No full length concerti for a while."

Sherlock smiled. "I don't have the time for that anymore, alas. The Case Work takes priority. It always has."

"Are you still composing? I seem to recall that started when you couldn't manage to pick up your violin last time."

"Yes. I do occasionally, and the odd transcription or re-arrangement."

"Good, good. Just keep the mental processes going while the therapist gets to work. I'm setting you up a series of weekly sessions with Sarah Pyker. She's our best specialist here, and works with a lot of musicians, so she will understand your need to reach the higher fingering positions. I know that you have another occupation now, so I'm going to ask Doctor Watson here to ensure that light exercise means just that. If that blog or yours is to be believed, you two seem to get up to a lot of physically demanding activity, Sherlock, so no swinging off balconies or chasing after suspects for a while. Promise?"

"Yes." It was simply said. John wondered if it was a promise that would be kept. If so, then it would be a minor miracle. But given the change in the man quietly sitting there, talking reasonably to a medical professional, compared with the mentally distressed, panicked and uncooperative person earlier in the week who refused to even speak, well… miracles were clearly possible.


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter Nineteen**

* * *

One of the disadvantages of having no fixed place of business was that James Moriarty had to be fairly inventive in his choice of venue when meeting with clients and contacts whose identity needed to be kept a secret. One such man was sitting on the white leather seat beside Moran now. One of his dark angels; this one was a Metropolitan Police officer who really would have preferred to be anywhere other than in the stretch limo. It was white and sufficiently eye-catching that he was sure it would show on every one of the Met's own CCTV cameras. Of course, anyone trying to trace who was in the back behind the tinted glass would find that it was on hire to the latest US imported rap star, in London to film another video. Moriarty had got into the car dressed in his chauffeur's uniform in an underground garage, and Moran then contacted the PC who aspired to be a DC- that is, to join one of the Murder Investigation Teams full time. They picked him up in a back alley off Piccadilly, under a conveniently disabled CCTV camera.

As they drove about London, Jim was listening to the conversation through the microphone and speaker system. Safe behind a smoked glass privacy screen, there was no way that this dark angel would ever know that the man who had singled him out for recruitment was listening in as they drove. Moran was doing the talking.

"So, Hanson, you said you had something interesting for me. If it's about Holmes, then this is very welcome intelligence."

"Yeah, well; you know I'm on secondment at the moment to the MIT command. That investigation you wanted to get going finally did get off the ground, and based on his usual working relationship with Holmes, Lestrade and his team drew the case. But, next thing I hear is that the great man has gone AWOL. Lestrade's doing his nut about it, and his sergeant is trying to argue that they don't need the guy- they can do it on their own. But so far, the investigation is spinning its wheels and going nowhere."

Sebastian Moran listened to the Irish accented voice coming through his earpiece. "AWOL? Sounds like a piece of dialogue from one of those horrible muscle movies you like to watch. Ask the birk what they think is going on. I mean, is Holmes on vacation? Off overseas on another one of his private cases? Give us a clue, matey."

Moran gave a thin-lipped, slightly predatory smile at the other back seat passenger. "You're the one who wants to be a detective, Hanson. So where you think Holmes is? What's keeping him from biting the bait we've set up?"

Hanson frowned. "Don't know for certain. The rumour mill says that Holmes isn't well. Lestrade's been talking to his snouts, putting the word out on the street to try and find the guy for the last three days. The hospitals have been told to contact the Met if Holmes shows up. And I overheard Donovan talking to one of the team in the canteen. She was pissed off, really annoyed; kept saying that Holmes had been unreliable once too often. She called him a junkie, a coke head who couldn't be trusted to be there when they really needed him."

Seb didn't wait for instructions. "You think he's off on a binge?" He didn't keep the delight out of his voice. He loathed Moriarty's fascination with Holmes, thought it was a big distraction. At least the elder brother was a legitimate target for recruitment as a dark angel. If they could get something on Mycroft Holmes that would mean he'd turn a blind eye to Moriarty's activities, well, that was worth getting, in his view. But the younger brother was just a waste of space in Moran's book.

"I don't pay you to think, Tiger. And your jealousy is showing." The Irish lilt purred into his ear, anticipating the sniper's thought process. "Ask the mole if his blind little eyes have noticed anything about the evidence. Are they investigating the victim's program files at the university yet?"

Moran asked the question. The answer came back. "I don't know."

Moriarty negotiated the traffic around Hyde Park Corner as if he was born to drive a limo. "Oh deary, dear me- tell him that he is going to have to do better. He has to _earn_ our help with that DC promotion he so covets. We didn't pay off that gambling debt out of the kindness of our hearts. If he can't come up with the goods by tonight, then we might just decide to _divest_ our current arrangement- serve him up nice and pretty to the Met's corruption inquiry. I _have _to know about Holmes- in detail. And I want this policeman plod to point somebody on that team toward the computer program. It would be far better if it were little brother drawing it to big brother's attention, but if not, we'll have to improvise."

When Sebastian delivered the ultimatum, Hanson paled, but nodded. "I'll do what I can." He was let out of the car at the back of the Hammersmith Apollo theatre, the stage entrance. It was an area free from CCTV- the theatre proprietors had been forced to take the camera away when the artists performing complained that the footage was showing up on YouTube. Hanson went in and the rap star came out. Moran took the wheel as Jim handed him the chauffeur's cap. Then Jim exited through the theatre, as well.

He crossed the road and approached the driver of a taxi that had been standing at a rank just off the Hammersmith roundabout. The licenced driver got out and handed him the keys. One of "his" people- he owned this man's soul, because the cabbie had come to his organisation last year with a simple request- "help me get rid of the body and I will let you use the cab for whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it." Moriarty had taken him at his word, sent Moran to do the dirty work and to explain that occasionally someone would be using the cab. The man never realised who the mystery driver was- just a bloke. Jim liked to drive through London. It gave him a secret pleasure to be making his way through all those intersections with traffic cameras, and never once attracting the attention of a minor official of the British Government. Jeff Hope had taught him the benefits of being a cabbie- "invisible- we're all just the back of an' ead to 'em." Jim practiced his cockney accent and tried out an English one, too. That would prove useful in rounds to come, when he needed to appear as someone else.

He started whistling as he crossed Vauxhall Bridge, heading toward Waterloo. He was on the way to pick up a particular computer programmer, who was waiting for him at the special pick up point alongside the now defunct Eurostar terminal. Private, and off camera, and very, very useful.

As he pulled up, the weedy looking man adjusted his glasses and picked up his brief case and roll-on suitcase. "Guten abend." In a thick German accent, the man asked if he was the taxi arranged for Herr Brauern.

"Yes indeed, my good man. Hop in." It was broadcast BBC accented English. As soon as the programmer settled back, Moriarty activated the door locks that came as standard on the Manganese Bronze London taxis- too many fares running off without paying had made it a necessity for every cab to be fitted. He then activated the intercom. The sealed glass that kept the driver of the taxi safe from a passenger with designs on his money also helped to keep conversations in the back private. A win-win in terms of design but it did mean the only way they could talk was by microphone.

The red light went on in the back that showed the passenger that the intercom was on. Jim asked in his cheery English accent, "Did you bring all the evidence of your work?"

"Ja, ja- as your boss asked. In exchange for the one million euros. My bank says it has been received."

Moriarty smirked. Within minutes, that transaction would be overridden and the money transferred onto a numbered Cayman Islands account.

"Well, my boss wants to thank you for your work. It's really quite credible, he says."

That brought a little frown. "Of course, it is credible. No one knows enough about the new language to be certain that it isn't what it is pretending to be."

Jim smirked. "A fake Trojan horse. How apt. Really, people should be wary of Geeks bearing gifts." That provoked a giggle from him.

There was something in the laughter that made his passenger uncomfortable. "I leave the briefcase here on the seat and you take it to your boss. You let me out on this corner, Ja?"

"Nooo, sorry. I'm not about to let someone like you get away. Just think of the blackmail potential as the new systems get implemented- you'll be knocking back on my door once a year, yapping about renewing the software licence for that little string of useless junk. Not on your life, matey- if you'd actually had a brain in that head, you'd know that I can't possibly let you go."

Jim turned off the intercom and locked the windows electronically, then operated the small canister of compressed gas. In less than a minute the man would be dead. He hoped that the programmer didn't throw up in his death throws. Cleaning the cab was such a nuisance- even worse than a party of drunks on Saturday nights.


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter Twenty**

* * *

When the taxi taking them home from the clinic turned onto Baker Street, John could see two cars were outside 221b, despite the double yellow lines. Mind you, it helped deter the traffic wardens that one of the vehicles was a police car and the other the anonymous type of sedan that John had come to know as Mycroft's wheels.

He sighed, then decided to pre-empt the inevitable fireworks from Sherlock when he did finally look up from his phone and saw the sight. "We've got company."

He wasn't prepared for the almost casual response, "good. I asked them to come." Sherlock didn't even look up from his phone. John was still pondering that comment when the cab drew up outside the flat.

"John. I haven't had a chance to get to a cash point recently. Just get them to put it on the account, will you?"

John wasn't sure whether it was the thought that Sherlock was actually talking to him about it rather than just leaping out of the taxi in his usual style, or the idea that, despite having no money on him, Sherlock was reminding John that the account in their names should be used rather than empty John's wallet. Whichever it was, the statement was remarkable coming from Sherlock. And it was yet another piece of evidence that something very significant had happened to his flatmate's behaviour. It made John realise that over the past six months the man's thoughtless, totally self-absorbed, uncommunicative nervous energy that had been getting worse was just…gone. It was totally unnerving.

He gave the cabbie the account number and signed for it before going in the front door to witness the sight of Mrs Hudson putting her hand on Sherlock's shoulder. She was smiling, and although Sherlock's back was to him, John could see that he was not resisting her touch. "It's good to have you back, and see you looking so well. What did the doctor say about that arm?"

"It will be fine; it's healing."

John interrupted. "Mrs Hudson, we've got visitors that are expecting us, so catch you later, alright?"

Sherlock went upstairs in a measured pace, rather than his usual manic two steps at a time, so John arrived at the living room the same time as his flatmate, who took off his coat and scarf and hung them on the usual hook. Then he turned to see Mycroft standing by the fireplace, Lestrade in Sherlock's chair, and Esther Cohen sitting in John's. The atmosphere in the room was tense.

"Glad you could make it, Lestrade. Let's start with you." The baritone was precise and steady. "I hope you've had time to at least scan the data I sent you?"

"Yeah- thanks for that. Uh, for future reference, I will be changing my password on a daily basis now- just got a lecture about it from our IT people. But, um, I'm not going to argue about it this time. The details you provided explain a lot- now all we have to do is find the culprit."

Sherlock gave a shake of his head. "That won't be possible. It's likely that all five were killed by the same hit man- a skilled assassin, but he's not really the person behind this."

Now Sherlock turned to acknowledge Mycroft properly. "This is _your_ territory, brother. The stakes are simply too high for it to be the work of an ordinary criminal or to remain a police matter. Have your people taken a view?"

"We're working on it. Thank you for the information." Mycroft gave one of his slightly strained smiles. "It will need a proper task force, an interagency working group and the assistance of overseas friends, as well. I've explained things to the Police Commissioner. He says the Met are relieved to find that they no longer have this as an open case on their files. We will find something to deflect the media's attention." He was scrutinising Sherlock very, very intently as he said this.

Sherlock fished into his suit pocket and pulled out two USB sticks. "One each. The evidence that I didn't think was wise to put in an e mail or even a HOLMES2 file. This one for you, Lestrade, will help your team learn how to tackle this sort of crime in the future. And yours, Mycroft, should help that group get started. A most interesting case."

John had taken off his coat and sat down on the sofa. He wasn't about to let Sherlock off the hook, and by the looks they were giving Sherlock, neither were Mycroft and Esther. The silence lengthened. Greg glanced from Sherlock to the other three, and sensed they were no longer welcoming his presence. But, he gave Sherlock a quiet look, and brown eyes locked on a pair of grey green eyes. "Are you done with me, or would you rather I stayed?"

That provoked the tiniest of smiles on Sherlock's lips –and it reached his eyes, too, so Lestrade knew it for real. "Go. You have work to do. And they won't eat me alive, I can handle it."

Greg gave a little nod. "Well, you know where to find me." And then he was gone.

Sherlock wanted to sit, but decided against the sofa where John was. He carefully pulled a chair out from the table, looking at the three of them. "You have questions."

No one was entirely sure where to start. In the end it was Sherlock who broke the ice. "Let's revert to the previous game plan you had. Three questions, one each. John, you can start, if you like."

The doctor started to open his mouth, then shut it. Then started again, only to stop, again. Finally, he just blurted out, "Are you _really_ alright, or is this just an act?"

"I'm fine. No, I'm actually _better_ than fine."

John just looked amazed and a little shocked. "How is that even remotely possible? What did you _do_?"

"I built a new Mind Palace. It turned out that the old one had just outlived its purpose. Rather than re-build it using the old system, I started over again. Went back to first principles. And it worked."

John looked confused. "What does that actually _mean_, Sherlock? I don't understand."

Sherlock turned in the chair to face Mycroft. "Why don't you explain the principle? You were always better at describing it than I am."

Mycroft pursed his lips. "The method of loci. Memory palace. The Roman Room, the Journey Method. It's been called a lot of things over the century or so it's been in use. Basically, it's a technique which engages spatial memory in such a way as to tag information you want to retrieve later."

He nodded towards Esther Cohen, who joined in, adding "Psychiatrists and medical professionals have proven how the process engages the medial parietal cortex, the retrosplenial cortex and the right posterior hippocampus. It's been scientifically proven to expand the potential of memory significantly."

Sherlock resumed. "Our mother taught it to Mycroft first. Then me. I think of it as the mother board* of my hard drive. We use it for different purposes, however. Mycroft's takes the form of a physical archive. My Mind Palace was at first a physical set of rooms when I was a child, but it wasn't enough. The SPD and the Spectrum complicate matters for me- I can't filter memory the way he does."

"My approach… evolved. It changed most when I reached adolescence. At my first term at Harrow, I was introduced to IT and ever since then, I've used my own program language and storage system- no longer spatially confined to sequential steps. Like a hard disk, my brain could store data anywhere, so long as the directory and path programmes work."

Esther was eyeing him carefully. "So why did you decide to suppress memory?" She was determined to get Sherlock to focus on what she believed to be a traumatic experience. If he truly was 'better', then this would be the true test.

He tilted his head a little, as if considering the question. "Limitations of space in the declarative memory meant that I needed to delete the pathfinder tags for a _lot_ of memories. Sensory overload creates that necessity. So, every so often I had to delete things, do a de-frag scan, clean things up. But, if you've ever deleted something on your PC by mistake, then you probably know that it's still there on the hard drive. You just need an expert user or a special software tool to recover it for you. Fortunately, in the new Mind Palace, that's a thing of the past now."

Mycroft looked dubious. "Why?"

Sherlock looked up at him standing by the fireplace. "Why don't you sit down, Mycroft? _Looming_ is a rather transparent tactic, and it isn't necessary." This wasn't delivered as the usual acerbic jibe, but in a rather bemused tone. "The Mind Palace 2.0 has unlimited storage capacity. I don't have to segregate according to long term or short term memory anymore. No longer confined to sequential programming language, I'm now working in four dimensions." There was the tiniest trace of Sherlockian smugness in that statement.

"_Four?!"_ Mycroft's disbelief was clear.

Sherlock responded, "There were advantages to getting the Geek case at just the right time. Think corelet, only better."

"Prove it." Mycroft's challenge hung in the air. John took a breath in- was it wise to return so directly to what it was that had driven Sherlock away?

"How would you like me to do that?" It was in a quietly confident baritone.

"Tell us exactly what happened between you and Guilliams on the night of the 17th of August 1994, and what father made you say when he got back and you came home from the hospital."

Sherlock actually smiled. "You think it was Dirk Guilliams? _Interesting. _What makes you think that?"

"You refused his photographs after he died. And the so-called suicide note I heard about from the West Sussex Chief Constable said that you couldn't live without the man who had been fired. I learned from Frank Wallace that Guilliams had left unexpectedly for London- and there was no further contact between you."

Sherlock shook his head. "You're wrong, Mycroft. Dirk wasn't the guilty party." He looked thoughtful. "Why would I want photographs? I can remember every scent, sound, touch and feel of Pirate, and every moment I spent with him. Why would I need a two dimensional paper representation of him?"

Mycroft returned to his original thrust. "So, why did the trainer leave on the 17th?"

Sherlock replied instantly. "Because his wife in London had been taken ill. He needed to go back overnight to look after the children when she was admitted to hospital. He planned to meet us at Gatcombe if he could get away. I told him it didn't matter if he couldn't make it- Pirate and I were ready."

Mycroft looked at Sherlock very intently. "Then _who_ was it who assaulted you?"

Sherlock sat back in the chair, taking a stronger posture, his right hand calmly resting in his lap. "Do you remember the Friesian, Geert Maes? You authorised Guilliams' hiring of him. He trained Pirate to jump and worked him when I couldn't fit it into my school timetable. He drove the horsebox to the competitions. He also turned into a bloody bastard when it came to losing to someone like me. His jealousy festered until it became verbal abuse and then more. What happened on the 17th was his way of getting revenge. He'd been fired that morning by Guilliams who caught him with a scalpel about to cut a nick in the distal sesamoidian ligament of Pirate's left front pastern. It would have lamed him, and kept us out of the competition. Dirk fired him on the spot, put him onto a train with a boat ticket to Holland and told him that if he wasn't out of the UK in twelve hours, he'd report him to police. Then he drove up to London."

Esther decided to enter the conversation. "How then did this man assault you? Can you remember now the memories you were suppressing?" She said it warily, worried that she might trigger a traumatic reaction. Yet, she also knew that she had to get Sherlock to surface the memory if they were to help him overcome the PTSD associated with the event.

She felt a pair of grey green eyes looking at her coolly. "You need not be alarmed, Doctor Cohen. I can recount exactly what happened without difficulty. I always have been able to do so, if I really needed it. A file you delete by accident on a PC can almost always be recovered, and even though I had removed the directory tag of the original memory, I could always find it, if I wanted to. The question was, why would I want to?"

Before she could reply, he carried on. "But, to answer your question directly, so you don't think I am avoiding it, Maes went one stop on the train and then came back. He got back to the stable and then assaulted me when I got back from working Pirate. He beat me, stripped my clothes off, tied me up and then used a riding crop to punish me for being the reason he was fired. Then he set fire to the stable. He meant for both Pirate and me to die, while he caught the last train and then the last ferry. I got free by using a tin of saddle soap to smash the bones in my left hand and wrist enough to squeeze through the restraint, and got free. I then went after Pirate who had hurt himself when he broke through the wooden wall. He died about a quarter of a mile away, just after I found him. At some point soon after, Frank Wallace found me and I was taken to hospital."

The tale was told in a factual voice, as if recounting one of his crime scene reconstructions- without emotion. John still found the whole idea of someone doing this to a fifteen year old just profoundly shocking.

Mycroft was not through. "Sherlock, I need to understand why this was kept secret. The Chief Constable said that when he investigated, father told him that you had set the fire and that you meant to burn down the barn, taking your own life. He said he'd been shown a fax with your signature. What actually happened?"

"Maes sent the fax- it was his alibi. He thought, quite correctly as it turned out, that if the fire was blamed on me, and the evidence of the fax taken into account, that they wouldn't bother looking for him."

Esther had been listening with an increased sense of horror. "But, surely you told the truth when you recovered at the hospital? "

Sherlock looked at her, and said almost gently. "I told father. He refused to believe me."

It was John who finally broke the stunned silence. "Why, in God's name, wouldn't he?"

"Because he'd been paying Maes to spy on me for almost two years. And Maes filled his head with all sorts of rubbish, including the fact that I fancied him, that I was a homosexual who had an adolescent crush on him. The first time he laid a hand on me, I went to father demanding that he fire Maes, but he called the man in and he said that I'd come onto him and that he'd beaten me up to teach me a lesson. Father approved of that. And he paid Maes to keep it quiet, lest my 'perversions' as he called it brought shame on the family name. So, whatever evidence trail Maes left when he assaulted me, father was pre-disposed to believe it."

Mycroft had just closed his eyes and sighed. "Yes, I can understand how it happened. But why didn't you tell someone else? Frank Wallace, or Doctor Cohen?"

That provoked a tilt of Sherlock's head. "Don't you think father would have taken steps to ensure I didn't do that? What part of your experience of him suggests to you that he would leave me that option? Of course, he made it impossible for me. He called me at the hospital and told me over the phone that the records of my admission would be destroyed, that he'd fix it to hide my shame from the police and social services. He made it clear that if I spoke to anyone about what had happened, he would use the suicide note with my signature on it to get me sectioned and sent away to a secure psychiatric facility. I valued my freedom too much to risk that. So, I just dealt with it and got on with my life."

"You should have told me, Sherlock." Mycroft was, for once, not hiding his sadness behind the usual icy mask.

"Father told me later that you knew. He said that he'd told you in September. When he died, I knew I was free from the threat of _him_ sending me away. But _you_ knew and had the evidence, and that gave you the power to put me away. So, nothing much had changed. And by then I'd build the first proper Mind Palace structure, and could deal with the memories and any…unpleasant side effects."

"I didn't know, Sherlock." This was uttered in genuine pain. "I'm sorry. I had no idea."

"You healed yourself alone, in the only way you knew how." Esther said it softly.

Sherlock shrugged. "It worked."

John's brow furrowed. "Then what went wrong at Musgrave Hall? Was that PTSD?"

His flatmate shook his head. "No, I don't think so. The idea that the memories were _traumatic_ doesn't really feel right. It might be to a neurotypical, but I just don't think of it in those terms- and I didn't really at the time, once the initial physical shock wore off. I was distressed by Pirate's death, but the rest was different. Assault by people I piss off isn't that remarkable in my life. It might distress what you once called 'real people' in their 'real lives', John, but it didn't have the same effect on me. It pushed me into making the Mind Palace better at compartmentalisation, which helped me grow up a lot. In a way, it was the push I needed."

Esther interjected, "But what about the emotional numbing, withdrawal? Surely…."

Sherlock waved a hand in dismissal; "That's just me. It was me _before_ the fire."

John had to look away at that admission. He had been trying to comprehend the impact that such a savage act of brutality would have on a normal fifteen year old. He'd assumed that a fifteen year old Sherlock would somehow be more vulnerable because of the SPD and his being on the Spectrum. But here was Sherlock telling him that it was actually an advantage- that his neuroatypicality gave him the means to overcome something that might have emotionally crippled someone else. It sort of turned everything on its head, and he looked at Sherlock with new-found respect.

"You _are_ amazing." It slipped out quietly without John thinking about it. And it provoked a gentle smile from Sherlock- one of his real smiles- in response.

Esther wasn't entirely convinced. "But, then why the flashbacks? The meltdown? John, you saw these last week, and we all saw what happened four days ago. How do you explain that, Sherlock?"

"What happened there was symptomatic of the breakdown of my previous version of the Mind Place- and that's been acting up for _ages, _at least six months or more. Declarative memory failed; things kept coming up in current memory that had no reason to be there. I haven't been working at my usual level for some time, and the whole structure just fell apart in the end. I suspect the two general anaesthetics were the final straw that pushed me into finding a new approach. And I left Baker Street because you three didn't understand what I needed, and I was too far gone to explain it. So, I found a place where I wouldn't be disturbed and sorted it."

Then Sherlock leaned forward. "Now, would you mind if we get onto something more interesting? What are you going to do about this computer criminal, Mycroft? I want to be involved in this case; it's _fascinating_."

* * *

***Author's note**: Thanks to Macgyvershe for this lovely concept. It also gives me an excuse to thank all of the reviews for their reviews and contributions over this and earlier stories- YOU are the reason why I keep writing here.


	21. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

* * *

The dark-haired man looked out over the rooftops of Baker Street. It was his favourite time of night- or, rather morning, as the clock would have it. The hum of London was quieter, but still there. The city was like him- wakeful, watchful, never truly switched off. He was up on the roof, testing the new Mind Palace, using new techniques to find old data. It would take some time to get used to the new accessibility. And to ensure that others were not alarmed at what changes were occurring in his demeanour.

The biggest change was in his sensory processing. For the first time in his life, the data coming in was no longer threatening to overwhelm his ability to process it. _I can cope_. That took the edge off, reduced anxiety, calmed the nervousness that he hadn't realised was building. Ever since the confrontation with Moriarty at the pool, things had been getting slowly but surely more difficult for him to deal with. But like a computer user who doesn't want to face the fact that the hardware bought years ago was getting increasingly cranky and error-prone, he'd tried to ignore it. _I was in denial._

Now he didn't need to deny anything, least of all the fact that he felt better than he had for _years_. He was still exploring what the new Mind Palace improvements meant, but, so far, he was delighted. One of the unexpected consequences was that it changed the way people reacted to him. Doctor Cohen was the most surprised (or was it a case of _easiest fooled?_); he could manage now all the behavioural mannerisms that once alarmed the psychiatrist. No more melt downs, panic attacks, anxiety or stimming that he'd allowed to creep into his manner. He didn't even need the hours of time-outs on the sofa, trying to limit the data coming in and process what had slipped in through improperly working filters. Nothing fundamental had really changed, but he felt _in control_ – of his emotions, his mental processes, his physical health. He felt _ready_.

That thought inevitably brought another- _Moriarty_. The accessibility of data in his newly re-built memory now was truly amazing. He was seeing links that he had never noticed before. The _something big_ coming that his brother was hiding from him, for example. He knew without even having to calculate it that this was now definitely linked to Moriarty. He knew that his brother was keeping him out of that confrontation. Over the past months, Sherlock had been willing to concede privately that he was not ready for a re-match with the Irishman. He was wary of his own vulnerability, his need to recover physical fitness and to try to sort out what was going wrong in his mental processes, too. He was overly-conscious of the implied threat to John. So, he had willingly kept a low profile, letting his brother pursue his own agenda.

No longer. Mycroft had not realised that Sherlock's secret contact with Irene revealed a trail that led back to Moriarty. Now that Irene was presumably safe, playing 'dead', it was time either to crack the phone wide open or destroy it and move on. He also now knew that the computer issues he had just stumbled on were linked to Moriarty, somehow. No one else either had the reach, the motive or, more important, the audacity to try a crime on such a massive scale. Even if he didn't have all the data yet to confirm that fact, his brother's behaviour validated the working hypothesis. Three weeks ago, Mycroft had thanked him for the tip-off, and then shut down all possibility of Sherlock being involved. _You're being a big fat idiot, Myc._ The "deal" that John had brokered to get him out of rehab was now totally dead in the water. There was no "sharing" of data going on, just a brotherly brick wall. Sherlock had kept his side of the bargain, but clearly his brother did not intend to. _Right_, t_hen I will stop playing fair, too._

He knew John would be distressed at his decision. He would argue that Sherlock was better off out of the battle. If Mycroft didn't want them involved, then it was necessary to respect that. He could hear the doctor's caution. (_Why go poking a hornet's nest, Sherlock? It's just too risky.) _John was still a bit leery of the most recent changes in his behaviour, as if he didn't trust that they were real. But Sherlock knew better. And it actually suited him to keep John in the dark. It was the best way to protect him from Moriarty, in the long run.

Sherlock looked south. From the roof of 221, he could see traffic lighting up the roundabout of Marble Arch, then the void to the right- the dark shadow of Hyde Park. He was not high enough to be able to see the absence of light that marked the path of the Thames snaking through the rest of the London skyline at night. But he knew exactly where it was anyway. It was odd. One benefit of the new Mind Palace was an automatic upgrade in his navigation map of London. He now found it easier to calculate relative distances and altitudes with ease.

A flashing blue light passing on the Marylebone Road alerted him to a police car on its way to something in a hurry. Perhaps a Homicide Assessment Team? The new Police Commissioner had decreed that the expense of a Murder Enquiry warranted more caution; an initial assessment was now needed before rating any suspicious death as worthy of further investigation as murder. That limited the number of cases directed toward Lestrade and his team- and therefore to Sherlock. But the advantages were that when he did show up there would be fewer suicides, accidental deaths or other boring cases not worthy of his attention. On the other side of the equation, however, was the risk that a clever criminal- and anyone contacting a certain consulting criminal would fall into that category- could fool the new HAT teams into thinking it wasn't worth throwing resources at. He would need to keep an eye on the HOLMES2 database to see if Moriarty would try to slip something under the radar.

_Game on, Moriarty. I am ready._

oOo

The dark-eyed man looked out over the London skyline. His penthouse suite at the Carlton Tower Hotel in Knightsbridge gave him a lovely view over Belgravia. He was looking for a particular street – South Eaton Place. Directly south of him was Cadogan Gardens, and he sharpened the focus of the binoculars to spot the rectangle of Eaton Square to his left- all those trees in the darkness were the give-away. Now, find the southwest corner and track south. He sought the particular townhouse and then brought to mind its occupant. He had not managed to get eyes into the premises, so he had to imagine the three piece suited man in a wing back chair, the book-lined study, the fireplace and the swirl of a fine brandy in a cut-glass balloon. Or would it be a finger or two of fine single malt whisky? He must try to find out from his spies at the Diogenes Club, send a bottle next Christmas. _Looking forward to happy holidays? Love and kisses to you and your brother, JM._

Jim was feeling particularly pleased with himself. Despite rumours about going amok, the consulting detective had solved his little puzzle in record time and Hanson, his mole in the Homicide and Serious Crime Command, said that Sherlock's pet DI had given them all a lecture on how to spot computer crime in the future. And the icing on the cake of today came when Sir Thomas Weston confirmed that Mycroft Holmes had put in a budget request to establish an interagency working party to investigate the disruption of a Trojan horse programme inserted into the new neuromorphic programming language. _Hook, line and sinker._ The next round was starting.

"Sebaaastian." His exaggerated drawl drew the sniper out onto the balcony. "How close would your target need to be to get a kill shot from up here?"

"Depends on how fast he was walking at this time of night." The blond man pointed to a pedestrian coming up Sloane Street, caught in the street lights. "And if he was approaching or retreating, as well as whether you wanted a head shot. But, that man there is dead, if you say the word." The rain coated figure was at least a thousand meters away.

"Ooh, you do like to get me excited. But, not tonight dear, no need to give him a headache." Jim smirked as he put the binoculars down to pick up his champagne again. "Did you make any progress with that rumour I gave you this afternoon?"

Moran gave a predatory grin. "Oh, yes. Your spies got a hole in one. The Woman and her maid are in the south of France. I can pick them off anytime you'd like."

He put the glass down on the balcony railing. "Oh, it's not _murder_ I'm after, Tiger. I just want you to kidnap the red-haired wench that gets Irenee's knickers in a twist. Once we've got her in safe custody back here in old Blighty, I'll send the Woman a ransom note. I want that MOD code, and I'm tired of waiting. With that and the little auction I've got in play, well…" He cracked his knuckles in anticipation. "Round Three is definitely about to start- and I have just the one-two punch to take out both the Holmes boys this time around."

Moran matched the Irishman's smile. _At last._

* * *

**Author's note: **

Well, that's the end of _De-Frag_. As with all of my stories, there is no real "end"- just a pointer towards the next story, because our boys are not yet ready to hang up their detective boots and head for Sussex to keep bees and retire.

For those of you familiar with my previous stories and with canon, you will have spotted that the Irishman is back, and playing around with computer codes. The Reichenbach Falls beckon. But before that, we have the little issue of Irene's return to deal with. So, now onto _Level Up._ I will start posting in about two weeks or so. It's the next instalment of the series started with _Collateral Damage_, then _Side Lined_, followed by _Crossfire_. If you haven't read those, then please do- and please review!

In the interval, I may stop in again at _Periodic Tales_ and also _Got My Eye on You_. I have a couple of one shots for the _ExFiles_, too. One more new story to appear in the autumn will be _The Shooting Party_, because it is integral to my final story in the series, tentatively called _Fallen Angel. _I have a lot of writing to do before the New Year and the return of Sherlock in series 3 (BBC hasn't confirmed it for certain, but highly likely on 1 January), when, quite likely, everything I have written will become AU, and I will have to start again.

At the end of September, I will have been writing here for one year. As ever, tell me what you liked and what you didn't like about the story and the writing, what you want to see more of, and what less. Feedback is the fuel that keeps me here in the fandom.


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